Nice effects though.

best movie i've ever seen.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The big problem with this flic is that it raises expectations of an action orientated narrative in the first act but then it doesn't just leave this element unresolved, the plot reverts to a Raft of the Medusa scenario. What we're left with is Five Go Loopy in the Basement (yeah I know there are eight). You know the kind of thing: there's no or little food, a couple of the guys start to go knutz blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.Quite why people get the notion into their head that another, look at the monkeys degenerate into barbarism as they struggle to survive isolated from civilization, plot is a scintillating prospect for an original script is baffling in the extreme but there you go, it happens and with depressing regularity. Having thoroughly stuck the boot in, I must say that the performances are pretty good in this flic which is something of a consolation at least.

The nuclear holocaust that occurs from the start is a minor character when compared to the group sealed shut in Mickey's home. It soon becomes apparent that Mickey, a loner who likes it that way, has let the wrong ones into his home, which as a survivalist and nihilist as well as a loner (after his wife died), he has kept well-stocked w/provisions for just such a terrible happening. He soon regrets letting in some of the group who are blacker inside than the ones who dropped the bomb outside, and the real horror of the movie comes with the knowledge that the human condition can be more terrible and frightening than any nuclear bomb. It isn't long before the're attacked by men wearing protective suits, but even then, you're kept in the shadows. As the movie moves along you begin to think it would have been better to be outside when the bomb was dropped.I have to say that I've always enjoyed Michael Biehn's movies, but especially his later work after he (like we all) put on the years and looked the part he played (he was always a good actor but in his earlier work that was heavily coupled with his 'good looks' as the original Kyle Reese in the 1st Terminator and Cpl. Hicks in Aliens whereas in his later works he didn't 'lose' his looks, he aged into a hard, weather-beaten, tough good looking man). And his taking part in the making of the movies brought that bleakness, the hardness with a core of hope or caring, that makes you want to hunt down more by the man. Always a good actor, he got better, as well as his directing and producing, giving you movies hard to watch but impossible to stop. This is one of them-it shows you that sometimes you don't know who the real enemy is until it's far too late.

The Divide is utterly and relentlessly dark in it's expressions of the very worst of human behavior. It was difficult and repulsive to watch,yet I found myself unable to turn away....(much like just having to look at the roadkill on the road as you drive by) For my tastes, this movie had just the right amount of gore and violence to realistically tell the story. The acting over-all, was generally well done and believable up to, Id say, excellently done. The story/script had surprises and twists at every turn that I didn't see coming. (That is a major plus in my viewing experience and usually very rare) There is nothing that bores me more then to already guess what will happen....I didn't have that problem with this movie. This is not your typical, same ole' same ole' post-apocalyptic flick and although it seems professional critics looked down on this movie, I personally thought it was the best one of its genre I've seen in YEARS. Although for those of you that have weak constitutions I'd warn you to pass, but if you aren't afraid of looking at UGLY truths, Id say GO FOR IT! Im glad I did.

This is a disturbing, thought-provoking, well-made film that has a huge fatal flaw to it. The characters are incredibly underwritten. This is a film that exemplifies the need to examine the characters life before the disaster occurs sending their life into a tail-spin. Unfortunately this film starts at the disaster, a nuclear explosion, before hinting at some of the characters pasts. And these are the only characters that we come to slightly know and care about. That is about 5 characters in a film where 9 characters play pivotal roles. And you only get to know those 5 characters slightly. The problem here is that 2/3 of the way through the movie is that the movie doesn't connect us with its characters. Its intention is to show the moral ambiguity of these characters and how they turn from civilized human beings to a "Lord of the Flies style group cannibalizing on the weaker members. And that's fine. I love "Lord of the Flies". But the director avoids allowing you to know the characters fully and that is a problem. If you don't know what the characters were like before hand, how can you be emotionally involved in where they end up? The director doesn't present the full spectrum here. Those who are given a slight backstory are very well played, especially by Rosanna Arquette as a mother who allows herself to be degraded to the worst possible degree in order to survive. But some of the characters are so thinly written that they begin psychotic and end up psychotic and you have no idea of what their connection is to any of the others or why they are there in the first place. And that is what hurts this film. You end up asking "Who are these people" 2/3 of the way through because you are not allowed to know them. It's a well made, well-acted film that trods along familiar lines but does so with intelligence. The problem is it doesn't want you to connect to it.