Day of the Sirens

A City, it could be any large City is being attacked by a terrorist group, they strike erratically, killing seemingly for no reason or purpose, they have make no demands, their victims are of different nationalities, ages, religions, ages. 'Day of the Sirens' is a post 9/11 movie, a nightmare waiting to happen, a dramatisation of a City under attack, confused helpless. Stark and chilling drama that will make you loose sleep.

I've seen many comments on this movie(recently seen on IMDb)that range from "best movie ever" to brutal slating, that it's boring, pointless, etc. Well, I find that the film is between both of these extremes. It does a good job of conveying the turmoil of a city under threat of a terrorist attack, that is very realistic, spot on (like Mike Leigh does action, a bit weird but very interesting), I really liked the action sequences which for a low budget movie were quite remarkable in their scale and content. The character tie-ins work very well, and do a good job of keeping things moving. Problem is, that I ended up not caring much about all of them, with the exception of the Saeed Jaffrey, the Spanish girl was a shock but I never felt like I knew or cared about her, Mayall was interesting but his character was only beginning to open up when his performance was suddenly over. Theakston does a good job on the cinematography in his DOP debut but in the final analysis, this could've been better if Brady would've reigned in his overindulgent script, had better dialogue, focused on less characters and fleshed out the remaining ones better, eschewed the Lisa Shaw character (at least the Police Commander that seems stuck to spot) and had an ending that made sense. Themes such as dispossession and terrorism have been handled better by more accomplished directors. So, I give it 6/10 - not terrible, but not a great film that I could recommend, given a sensible budget though I guess it could of been much better, but trying to create a film of this scale on a micro budget was always doomed to failure.

I sat through the bad acting and cheap digital-camera feel, intrigued to see how the three separate storylines would eventually come together. Surprise, they didn't! Apart from the fact that all the 'central' events in the film took place on the same day, they had nothing to do with each other... or with anything else.

What a waste of time.

This film is pure rubbish. It was very obviously cheaply made with many cardboard characters. An exception to this is the Spanish couple. Sayeed Jaffrey's acting was also good but I wanted to shake him every time I saw him. He was so wimpish. The ending seemed to me to be 'make up time' in order to make it into a full length film. The film was also inconclusive and should have finished as soon as the killer was caught - not go meandering on inventing more killers and killings. Also London would not have come to a stop in this sort of event - let alone with people blocking all the routes out of the city. The film also jumped scenes too much. Very disappointing!

Ambitious is the best word I could use to describe this film. After reading a press piece by the director Brady I was curious to see on his tiny budget if in fact he had pulled his concept off. Now yes this film is nothing like films coming out of Hollywood, with the exception of perhaps Falling Down, but it's British and designed to play to a different target audience. It is in fact a real curiosity, the director like Goddard in Alphaville, cleverly uses locations and real documentary footage and wonderful sound design (note the corridor sequence a the radio station) to create a genuine feeling of a city under attack, it is never grandiose and ridiculous, in fact it's so darn right colloquial and pedestrian it at times seems so every day normal that it is subversive in that you don't feel like your really watching a dramatisation, more like a weird documentary which therefore begins to get slowly under your skin. Whilst some of the minor characters are weak and two-dimensional all the leads are convincing to excellent in range. A telemovie in reality but an exceptionally good one and on the budget very impressive. Recommended viewing when it comes around on cable.