40 Acres

40 Acres is a new Canadian, post apocalyptic......farm thriller?

The basic plot follows a family living on an isolated farm in the middle of rural Canada, several years after a mushroom pandemic, civil war and other weird stuff.

Society has fallen, and there are cannibals and raiders everywhere. A family of mixed ethnicity are now surviving, growing food on their farm, which is super important, all animals are now wiped out and farmland is a super hot commodity.

The movie is handsomely shot but it bounces around from dark humour, horror, a military movie, a family religious movie and a coming of age movie, oh and kidnapping movie.

It's almost like the director said to the writers "Hey you have all of this stuff in here. What kind of movie should this actually be?" And then they all said "Yes."

This is a textbook example of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the wall, but what sticks actually does kind of work.

The movie is unique in that when it's the turn...things get worse for the characters....and then it gets worse......and then it gets worse...before being tied up in a nice little bow at the end.

At the end of the day, if you gave me this film's budget and actors and told me to go with god, this isn't the movie that I would necessarily come up with, but I'm glad that someone took a stab at it. The result is a low to mid budget thriller that actually pulls it off. I saw this movie at a surprise screening, but I'm glad that I did.

In a time of famine, a cynical veteran isolates herself and her family from the rest of the world. Abiding by strict rules, the family prospers, while others succumb to the famine or are targeted by cannibals. While she is okay with their way of life, her son is not and decides to test the limits of the rules, leaving the family fighting for survival.

This is not a typical end-of-the-world scenario. It does not involve zombies, a nuclear war, or an alien invasion. Like many end-of-the-world stories, it explores morality and human depravity. The family's race and history set the story apart from others. There is a good amount of well-choreographed action throughout, but some dialogue scenes are over-the-top and unnecessary. The story is predictable, even with a few unique aspects, making the one-hour and fifty-three-minute runtime feel long. This is definitely worth a stream when available.

Just saw the movie. First the movie is too long by probably a half hour. There is lots that could be cut to save time and make the movies pace better. I would have also appreciated more world building. There was a small blurb at the beginning but thats pretty much it. The mother is unlikable which I think is the point but it's too much for too little payoff. The step dad and his daughter are a breath of fresh air for the characters. The movie takes forever building up to the action which is at least good. There was a very cool dark action scene that I would have loved to have more of.

Overall it's too long too slow tells too much about stuff that doesn't matter and not enough about what does.

Doesn't give apocalypse nor scifi. Acting was amateur. The violence was accurate, the deuss ex machina scene was not believable. We didn't care enough for the characters from their poor development. Would not recommend not cause acting was laughable nor for the underwhelming climax of it all, but because loosely connected stories coupled by a deplorably written script gave a childish almost annoying vibe that makes a enjoyable movie going experience feel like torture . Had hopes by the rating of the film, so I had to leave a review to anyone thinking they might want to see this. DON'T. Your wasting your time.

40 Acres is advanced in how it treats familial, racial, and interpersonal traumas. One could look at this film as an allegorical reflection on the devastation ravaged by North American colonists towards multiple communities (i.e. Indigenous Canadians and enslaved Africans) and, while this is necessary to feel the full weight of these survivors' journeys, the genre bending and fast-paced sequences are so well-tailored that the thrills alone can carry the film.

These are survivors in the truest sense of the word, and it's not killing or laboring in the fields that gives them a hard time, it's learning how to build the trust to let others in.