DEFCON-4

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.

Perhaps my enjoyment of this movie largely stems from my not being Canadian. It seems that the Canadian reviewers have a grudge against the film. I can only imagine that they are getting some inside jokes that I am not.

I have liked this film since I was a kid. I rank it up there with "The Day After" as one of the better post-apocalyptic movies made. A lot of people give that honor to "Mad Max", but I found "Mad Max" boring and far too campy.

"Def Con 4" takes a serious tone, which is occasionally undermined by poor acting and special effects. But the overall impression is quite good. Sure it's fun to make fun of, but this is largely because we no longer live with the fear of nuclear war on a daily basis.

I found the writing to be quite good, with an effective and interesting opening drawing the viewer into the life of the astronauts as they waited to return to Earth. The movie is actually quite solid until it is necessary for a new conflict to be introduced - when the surviving astronauts meet the teenage, post-apocalyptic Hitler, the downhill slide begins. But even then it's not terrible. It's actually fun seeing how seriously everyone is treating the subject matter. And how can you not love a movie that begins with "It is the day after tomorrow"? The movie also has quite possibly the best tractor-immobilization sequence ever committed to celluloid.

On the downside, the action sequences are rather ineptly filmed, and the acting can be a bit wooden. But, hey, it's a low-budget sci-fi film. I recommend it for a fun evening.

All right, the plot is thin and at times unbelievable, but the acting and effects are competent. The film's target audience were the teen-aged denizens of the last of the American drive-ins, and it's typical Cold War nuclear-midnight material. While in outer space, three astronauts witness the obliteration of the cities of earth in a full-scale nuclear war. When their spacecraft's automatic return mechanisms are commandeered, they land in a remote and highly radioactive section of Canadian coastline, where totalitarianism and cannibalism rule the day.

I saw this one at a drive-in when I was 19, and watching it now reminds me of the feel of my beat-up car's leatherette seats, the smells of popcorn and hot dogs from the poastapocalyptically unclean snack bar, and several other less seemly teen pleasures that ultimately overran and sealed the demise of the drive-in venue as the rest of the world abandoned it for home video.

Most of the movies I saw in what is now a forgotten, overgrown lot behind a commuter parking area (a summer storm tumbled what was left of the big screen years ago) were similarly produced with nuclear hysteria in mind, usually with unknown talent and enormous plot holes (what, exactly, were the sources of gasoline in the desert wastelands of "Mad Max" and "Cherry 2000"?).

These "B" films represent a period in American cinematic history that, while rarely critically laudable, nevertheless reflects the morality issues of generations. Our fear of the atom had metamorphosed from the accidental gigantism of everything including common insects, rodents and the occasional slowly-driven-mad citizen to much more tempered, though not always realistic, pondering of civilization after a full-out attack...and most of these films played out on the other side of our windshields.

So, spray on some bug repellent, haul the TV out to the garage, and enjoy some Mom's-car make-out sessions with your spouse. This film makes it 1985 all over again.

This is definitely a B movie, the acting all needing a little coaching, and of course, now very dated. However, the actors are all young (save one or two), there is a pretty large cast and its easily possible to look past that. The script and the story are pretty solid. The sets/props are much better and at times this strange little concoction throes up a truly Mad Max quality Dystopia. The guns/gun blasts are tinny and a mistake. More attention here would have been an easy way to instantly improve this piece. But having said that I must confess it was an enjoyable experience. The cgi (or achieve footage?) of nuclear explosions seemed very real, was done well and gelled well with the flow. For a B movie I only counted two glaring plot holes, neither of which distracted from my enjoyment, and with a dash of tangental thinking may have just been explainable. The cinematography and editing have a modicum of flare. And lets not distract from how important and brave the ambition here. It's not as good as The Day After or Threads, but its plausible and not that far removed in comparison. For me it was good enough to have imagined it from that same universe as those two seminal works. And like I said, for me at least, it was never boring and I definitely enjoyed it.

I will note that the dvd cover art is misleading. At first I thought the movie must be about a cute robot!

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.