Runaway Virus

This film is very underrated. When I was reading the rather flippant comments that others had made about this film -- this film which was made for TV, this film which is currently unavailable in the US, this film which I had to send away to THAILAND to get -- I couldn't help wondering whether the film they were writing about was was the SAME film that I had watched. This film is the only (fictional) film I know of that deals with the possibility of a pandemic of influenza. Influenza was -- and remains -- the biggest threat to mankind of all diseases, including plague, ebola, you name it. This film is more credible in many ways than most other films which deal with the possibility of pandemic disease. Its premises about disease are correct; its handling of the "Russian North" is good; its portrayal of "south-of-the-border" matters is quite reasonable. This film is definitely worth watching for people who are interested in the SUBJECT MATTER of the film, as opposed to whether big-name actors appear in it or its mushy love scenes, etc.

Two virus experts chase life and dead flu carriers to the corners of the world in a race against time to prevent a plague of pandemic proportions. A grim reminder of the silent threat of renegade flu stems wrapped into 1,5 hours of high quality television entertainment makes Runaway Virus ideal edutainment for family consumption. Yes, the underlying love story may be a bit corny and some of the supporting roles could have been stronger, but research, costume design, art direction and photography have all been done well above television standards. The silent bug is that the biggest threat to public health is the possible arrival of a Guatemalan Typhoid Mary in LA, as if spreading the disease throughout Mexico would be less reason for panic....

This movie was nice to view, I enjoyed it. Perhaps because the issue of spreading of dangerous viruses is something which fascinates me.

Not the world's best movie, certainly, but OK instead of that.

Something which often happens in Hollywood products is that the scientific and technical details are incorrect. In this movie, this mainly occurred in that the incubation time for the virus described was unreasonably short. People got infected and died within a day or so, when this was suitable for the story. Some viruses may have such a short incubation time, but not an influenza virus.

The people in the movie were also sometimes too frantic and irritated at each other, compared to my experience of medical professionals of this kind.