DEFCON-4

I have to say that I am very surprised at the very low 3.5 rating! This film is very underrated and I must say that it is genuinely one of the best movies I've seen. Okay this movie is very low budget and at times cliché but the subliminal message of the whole storyline is intriguing. Not many people will see this but there are many references to past dictatorships and sociological theories. If you can try and watch the movie without acknowledging its low budgetness then perhaps you can witness some fine acting, particularly from Alan MacGillivray, who plays the eventual hero of the film, Boomer. I am surprised from his sheer excellence in his performance as Boomer, that his career did not extend to bigger and better things. This film is a hidden gem. Highly recommended.

The first half hour of this flick is so intense and well-done that you can't help but feel letdown when it quickly degenerates into Z-grade, Mad Max post apocalyptic nonsense. And it just continues to get worse and worse until the rather abrupt ending.

Three astronauts orbiting Earth watch helplessly as World War III erupts. After making an emergency crash landing, one of the astronauts in rendered unconscious while another is dragged from the ship and eaten by savages. Howe, our hero, escapes and finds that Earth has become a wasteland inhabited by post apocalyptic cretins ruled over by a snot nosed rich kid named Gideon.

If the film had maintained the tension and drama of the first half hour, this movie would have been a classic. But as it stands, it's just another Mad Max wannabe. Skip it.

Def-Con 4 (1985) was a surprisingly good low budget take on World World 3. Despite the low budget and the cast of minor actors, it works. The landscape and the situations the residents on a heavily radioactive Earth are a lot similar to what it would actually be like compared to most movies that were made during this time.

A nuclear warhead equipped space station is circling above the stratosphere when the unthinkable happens. Nuclear holocaust! In a pickle, the crew aboard the space station must make several decisions in order for them to survive in a world that's nearly impossible to survive on. Can they do it? What kind of world awaits their return? A watchable film that will give you a good time if in the right mood.

Recommended.

This low-cost Canadian produced presentation is reasonably ordinary, but for its type not as terrible as it's made out to be. This is one of those films that the cover artwork always made it look quite interesting, but the synopsis on the back had less of an affect. A friend of mine convinced me to watch it, after the first half-hour I could see why because the story does such a great job setting up the highly-charged, innovative predicament (three astronauts in space watch on as world war three erupts with nuclear attacks on Earth) to only lose its way when a couple months later they crash-land back on earth then it becomes a very vanilla-like post-apocalyptic Sci-fi wasteland survival outing (of the very cheap, rancid b-grade kind) with some very unbelievably trite villains that come off more as joke than anything truly threatening. The head honcho played by Kevin King seemed more suited in a "Save by the Bell" episode, than as a ruthlessly imposing leader. At times I was waiting for cued laughter from an audience whenever he was on screen, as he came off more so a brat. Just as poor was Tim Choate in the leading role. Well more so eccentrically annoying. I found the support to be much better; Kate Lynch, Lenore Zann (running around in a school uniform), Maury Chaykin and John Walsch. The opening first half-hour is very well pulled off; with some striking visuals, solid set-designs and usefully gripping details. You could see where all the money went in to, but that could probably explain its weakly conceived abrupt ending. Maybe that had run out. Anyhow during its grounded action, it does create some nasty touches, edgy activity and cement an ugly intensity. Too bad it just too daft (simply lacking the colourful craziness) and at times incoherent. The story is straight-forward, although the script is flimsy and too black and white to make it completely fulfilling. Minimally junky and grim, if particularly plain post-nuke entertainment.

It was the best of films, it was the worst of films... two words: "Engrossingly Mind-numbing". Def-Con 4 is truly an oddball. The script is incomprehensibly senseless. There is no story arc at all, it is simply a collection of characters improvising scenes. It is a great example of what I like to call "plotless development" or "one damn thing after another". The acting is uniformly bad with the exception of Maury Chaykin who is hilarious as a Canadian survivalist. I particularly love one scene in this film in which we see the detail of a mechanism of a booby trap. The booby trap has as its trigger a Canadian social insurance card. What kind of symbolism are we supposed to find in this? Either this is the deepest film I've ever seen or the it is the shallowest. Either it deserves a 10 or it deserves a 1, I'll split the difference and give it 5.