Right at your Door has issues. Of course, being a film with a limited budget, it stays away from effects laden shots and instead focuses in on the two main characters. Married couple Lexi and Brad. A shame then that it picks characters with ZERO in common, who are quite unbelievable as a married couple. Sometimes films have done this on purpose. Take the brilliant “The Edge” where Anthony Hopkins and Elle Macpherson are portrayed as married. There the ‘anti-chemistry’ sets up the entire plot of the story and that Hopkin’s victorious rite of passage for the character. Here, it becomes a mess. It is difficult to even care about the overarching terrorism plot as so little of it is shown to us. We see no results of the bombs and the camera very rarely strays away from Brad. A device that was supposed to increase the sense of isolation, but actually just make use wonder what the hell is happening elsewhere? The essential question the films asks is “Would you let in your other half when the radio tells you to bar the doors from a virus? And what are the consequences of the action?”
Moreover, significant medical plot holes infect this film and there are many MANY strands of story that go nowhere such as the man locked in with Brad that he doesn’t know and the small black kid his wife picks up. Even worse was the introduction of a man, Rick, who seemed to offer some sort of plot twist but just literally disappeared. The plot instead tries very hard to draw you away from the slightly obvious incident that later decides the ending and lays us up for a ham fisted and decidedly cruel twist.
This ending left me cold. As by avoiding the characters from learning anything in the entire movie the film only manages to horrify you by showing you the brutal necessity of the survival of the many against the lives of the few. For me to be engaged (and it isn’t hard) characters must show that they care in ways other than just screaming. Perhaps lessons from Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) are in order?
One big pile of fail. This film scores a mediocre 6.
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