BEFORE: Some excitement at the movie theater last night, a man came in the lobby, being chased by another man - the theater's in NYC's eclectic Greenwich Village neighborhood, so really, anything's possible. The first guy shouted that the second guy had a gun (he didn't) and ran past me, either to go upstairs or out the rear exit. A co-worker of mine stopped the second guy, who was holding out both his empty hands, to prove he had no gun, and though he clearly wanted to pursue the first guy, he left the building before long. By the time a security guard or manager got to the lobby, the situation was defused, but still, it was quite scary to have someone (again, falsely) claim that someone else had a gun, and could be an active shooter. I put in my notice, and I've got one more week on the job, and I can't wait to get out of there, it can be a crazy place.
Arnold Schwarzenegger carries over again from "Killing Gunther". Today's film came to my attention on Netflix, but I took too long to link to it, because it's no longer available there. I know there's usually a two-year window, but sometimes it seems like some movies disappear from that service ahead of schedule.
My timing is a bit spot-on, Arnold's making headlines this week for his anti-anti-maskers rant, calling people "schmucks" if they don't wear masks and protect themselves during this most recent wave of the COVID-pandemic. It's cost him at least one sponsor from his body-building competition (which is held in Columbus, where this film also takes place) but he's not wrong, anybody who doesn't wear a mask for their own safety, and the safety of others, or is still on the fence about the vaccine, is a schmuck - by the dictionary definition of "schmuck", which is a foolish, stupid or contemptible person.
THE PLOT: Two strangers' lives become inextricably bound together after a devastating plane crash.
AFTER: This film follows the technique of "parallel editing", relating the stories of two men in turn, first one and then the other. Most commonly, like 99% of the time, the two stories told via parallel editing are bound to intersect, and in those rare cases where they don't, the audience can feel cheated, because they're so used to seeing such meetings take place. The technique is perhaps poorly named, because in geometry, parallel lines never meet, but in storytelling, parallel STORY-lines usually do.
The first part of the story centers on Roman, an older man who's about to become a grandfather, and he's working at a construction foreman job in America, but he sounds like he's from Europe - you know, maybe Austria or something. His wife and his pregnant daughter are flying in to Columbus, only the plane doesn't arrive on time, and when he inquires, he's ushered by airline personnel to a private back-room. Uh-oh. He finds out that their plane has crashed with another plane in mid-air, and it's unlikely there are any survivors.
Against all rational advice, Roman deals with his grief by volunteering at the crash site, and you'd think they'd have a better way to screen the volunteers, other than just asking, "You're not related to any of the crew or passengers, are you?" Or you'd think that the FAA or whoever would have a list of trained professionals to do this job, who might be more well-equipped. But let's give the film the benefit of the doubt for just a moment. Roman tries his best to continue on, but he's consumed with grief and finds it hard to get back to any normal routine - and you might be wondering at this point if Schwarzenegger was the right actor to cast in this role, because it does seem to require someone with a serious acting ability.
Roman's offered a payout to settle his lawsuit against the airline, but refuses to take it, because all he wants is some form of apology, which nobody seems able to give to him.
The second story starts with a day in the life of Jake, an air traffic controller. Yep, another uh-oh moment, and you can probably guess where this is going. There are technical problems in the control tower, Jake's given one too many planes to handle after one is diverted from Pittsburgh, and two planes are accidentally put on a collision course. The film perhaps falls JUST shy of saying that he's at fault, he did get distracted and miss one key bit of conversation from a pilot, but the airline reviews his efforts and tells him that the accident wasn't his fault.
Still, Jake is also consumed with grief, and also guilt. The news reports start to draw their own conclusions about what might have gone wrong, whose fault it was and Jake's home gets spray-painted with words like "killer" and "murderer". Jake also finds it hard to function or return to a normal routine, and his relationship with his wife and young son are affected. It's a rare plot point where a woman wants to separate from her husband in order to SAVE the marriage, not end it - but Jake needs some time to work through what happened, and even takes the advice to leave town and get a new job, under a new name. Whatever you have to do, I guess.
But, as I said before, it's inevitable that these two men will collide in some fashion, even if it's just sitting next to each other on a bus or something. The story (allegedly based on a real incident, but one that took place in Germany in 2002) demands that the two main characters need to meet, even if it's just to look each other in the eye and settle things. One year later, after a memorial service and victims' monument dedication, Roman contacts the woman who wrote a book about the plane crash, and asks her to put him in touch with the air traffic controller.
Obviously, something happens, and I won't reveal it here, but you can look up the actual incident if you really want to. But then maybe it becomes clear why they hired Schwarzenegger for this role - it becomes a different sort of story at that point. The conflict between the two men is perhaps mirrored by the mid-air collision of the planes. It's not that their paths were destined to intersect, but it's another form of accident that their lives crossed in this way, and the repercussions of one little error in the control tower are far-reaching, even years later. The real-life Roman, named Vitaly Kaloyev, was Russian, and what happened to him was very different than what happened to his fictional counterpart.
The nature of the story might be one reason this film disappeared from Netflix, or maybe it's the title - I've also got another film, "The Aftermath", from 2019 on my list, and there's also a horror movie titled "Aftermath" released in August 2021. I know that a movie title can't be copywrighted, but so much confusion in the market place doesn't help any of the parties involved. But it looks like I won't be getting to the 2019 film "The Aftermath" this year, so I've got no problem keeping the films separate.
Also starring Scoot McNairy (last seen in "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood"), Maggie Grace (last seen in "The Jane Austen Book Club"), Kevin Zegers (ditto), Martin Donovan (last seen in "Tenet"), Judah Nelson (last seen in "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues"), Hannah Ware (last seen in "Shame"), Mariana Klaveno, Larry Sullivan (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Jason McCune (last seen in "Fathers & Daughters"), Glenn Morshower (last seen in "Dark Places"), Christopher Darga, Dani Sherrick, Keith Flippen (last seen in "The Mule"), Teri Clark Linden, Lewis Pullman (last seen in "The Ballad of Lefty Brown"), Mo McRae (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Kevin Murray, Danny Mooney (last seen in "Whip It"), Chloe Stearns, Joy Corrigan, Philip Winters.
RATING: 4 out of 10 "Welcome Home" signs
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