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'The Divide' Somehow Makes The Apocalypse Worse

Film Rundown:

Genre:

Thriller

Parental Rating:

NC-17

Director:

Xavier Gens

Starring:

Lauren German, Michael Biehn and Milo Ventimiglia

Runtime:

110

Our rating:

by The Ology Team .

On Jan 13, 2012

In my interview with actor Michael Biehn, I learned of the risks taken by Divide director Xavier Gens. Rampant improvisation was encouraged to the point that characters, scenes, hell, the entire script was rewritten while the cameras rolled. In Biehn's words, "There was more tension on this set than any other set I've ever worked on. The actors hated each other. They f*cking hated each other." Given that they were making a claustrophobic post-apocalyptic thriller, this brazen method might have worked. But it didn't. On strictly visual terms, The Divide is a masterpiece. On all others, it's a mess.

The setup is simple: a handful of survivors of a nuclear attack on New York take shelter in the basement of their apartment building. The characters aren't worth naming, because all their defining attributes evaporate the moment paranoid superintendent Mickey (Biehn) locks the door. In a matter of days, dickishness devolves into savage brutality as the tenants start torturing, raping and flat-out murdering each other. Teamwork this ain't.

Though The Divide cultivates a certain nightmarish charm, it's mostly undone by its lack of plausibility and logic. Why, when trapped indefinitely in an enclosed space, would everyone smoke like it's going out of style? Wouldn't oxygen be a priority? Wouldn't working together unarguably improve everyone's chance of survival? Isn't any idea better than letting everything go literally to Hell? In the end, The Divide has nothing to say about humanity that hasn't been said before. Hold on, lemme grab my bong.

::inhales/exhales insane plume of smoke::

Like, human beings are all just feral beasts on the inside, man. If society didn't keep us in check, we'd all just roam around, raping and killing each other. It's, like, science or something. Hey, anyone wanna play Mario Galaxy?

SumOlogy: Societal disintegration. Wake me when it's over.

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