Alpha
Alert (2013 aka Event 15/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C Film: C+
A
terrorist attack leaves 3 soldiers stuck in an elevator together. As
they soon realize there is no one coming to save them they must rely
on their training to save themselves, but as their efforts one by one
fail, the tension rises and so does the stress levels, soon they take
their toll and there is a break down of leadership and command. Will
they be able to escape, much less find out what is happening to them?
In
Matthew Thompson's new stuck-in-a movie Alpha Alert (2013),
the three stuck veteran soldiers also have post-traumatic stress
disorder in said elevator with no communication to the outside world,
what they don't know is they are in an experiment funded the
government to test drugs to suppress PTSD. With the combination of
already traumatized soldiers, racism and sexism, surrounded by
failures send the soldiers off the deep end and cause psychotic
breakdown, and turns one of them into a murdering psychopath.
This
is one of those films that was shot almost entirely in a elevator and
you spent most of the film in there with the characters, the drama
and their flashbacks, but it comes off as low budget movie when you
shoot a movie like that. There are those who believe in order to
save the majority they must first kill a few. Those in command are
above the law and that a few must be sacrificed for the 'greater
good'. Under the guise to chemically altering a soldier's mind to
prevent PTSD and suicide rates in order to save government money and
troops, they conduct highly illegal experiments that violate the
human rights act, but in end what is the real truth about signing on
to be soldier... legalized murders and murderers for the government?
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is soft and the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix is too weak for the repetitive nature of the
production. Extras include Digital
Copy, interviews with director & cast, and trailers.
-
Ricky Chiang
