Running time: 96 minutes
Starring: Rory Cochrane, Mary McCormack
Rating 4 out of 10
Billed as a timely look at the consequences of a terrorist attack on modern-day Los Angeles, Right at Your Door has a retro, grainy feel to it. Undoubtedly made and released in an attempt to cash in on the current climate of fear, the film suffers on several levels: its central plot is a stagey and often tedious one, it's never quite as clever as it would like to be, and it draws on sources which are far superior: any plague/outbreak/virus novel by the likes of Frank Herbert, James Herbert or Stephen King has far greater depth and interest. Rory Cochrane (familiar from TV's CSI series and also currently appearing in A Scanner Darkly) and Mary McCormack star as Brad and Lexi, a young couple who have just moved into a new house in the LA suburbs - perhaps the plot's only neat trick as they have no phone or TV installed, thus disabling communication. Brad is some sort of musician and lolls about the house one morning while Lexi drives off to her office job. But when a dirty bomb explodes in the city and cripples its infrastructure, panic sets in chez Brad.
Unable to contact Lexi by phone, Brad starts to go crazy, especially when menacing authorities appear in chemical suits and order everyone in the neighbourhood to stay indoors. It transpires that the chemicals unleashed may not only be fatal, but are also highly contagious. As a result, Lexi's unexpected reappearance at Brad's front door - now fully sealed in plastic sheeting - provides the work's central dilemma: should he let her in or not?
Fans of the series 24 may well be familiar with devices such as terrorist attacks leading to moral dilemmas, but Kiefer Sutherland's successful show packs more punches in a single episode than Right at Your Door manages in 96 minutes (which actually seems a lot longer). The trouble is that the characters themselves lack depth, a flaw that is exposed in the second half which more or less consists of Lexi wailing outside her front door while Brad wonders whether or not to let her in. Attempts to introduce a couple of secondary characters go nowhere.
Right at Your Door also raises questions about making films about the current terrorist threat: if these films re-examine events that have happen in an interesting and human way (Paul Greengrass' United 93, or the Oscar-nominated Paradise Now), then they have a place in opening up the debate. It's hard to see exactly what Right at Your Door is trying to achieve, as it seems to concentrate on exploiting current events and human fear, rather than telling us anything unique or original about it.
Paul Hurley
