Containment

Bought this & thought it was recently released this year in 2020. However, I just discovered from trying to find this film to review (like all Straight-To-DVD Films) has a alternative title & guess what, has been out for nearly 5 years. The film is about a projects somewhere in London being sealed up by a hazmat team who discover the insides of these blocks of flats are infected with a deadly virus. The film starts out ok, but just plods along with no real action or gore. You expect a horror about a pandemic to feature infected people roaming around like zombies feeding of one another & them being killed by our heroes. But no, you don't get any of that in this 1 hour & 7 minute film. Boring The story was dull & lacked edge, substance & umph. I know I'm not one to complain about cliches in terms of "Been there, done that" but this film sure made you say just that after watching as there was nothing distinguishing about this film. It lacked. Badly. And could've been way better, WAY WAY BETTER. Overall, dull & uninteresting. 2/10

Mark wakes up late, missing a court appearance to find no water coming out of his taps, his communications cut off, and his door glued shut. So it's a little flawed, it feels like it was made as a student film, and Lee Ross is the nine millionth person we'd cast as a lead role in a thriller, but for my humble opinion I felt it worked rather well. Lee is a great comic actor, but also credible in a straight role, he's great. The film is totally stolen by Sheila Reid, straight out of Benidorm, it could have been written for Madge, she's so good. I expected an ambiguous ending and I wasn't disappointed, I kept expecting zombies and wondering if there'll be a follow up. Imagine waking up to these events? Thought provoking, in a similar way to Threads. More enjoyable then the reviews give it credit for. 7/10.

Any movie should allow for suspension of disbelief. This one doesn't. It's not so much that this movie is unbelievable, it's that there's no world in which actual human beings would react like this during a crisis. As it happens, I have some knowledge about epidemics and how governments tend to treat them. My wife once contracted SARS, and thus had to be quarantined. At every step of the process, it was communicated what was happening and why it was happening. If we are to believe this movie, no one in the government has ever dealt with a health crisis before, and has even less ability to communicate with its citizens. Everything they do is a Mr. Magoo level of incompetence. Clearly, no one knows what they're doing. The whole containment is strategy is demented. Now considering the people being contained, if you're lucid and need to be cured of an illness, wouldn't you somehow try to make peace with the people who can make it happen? Even if doctors have terrible bedside manners, most people tend to listen to them. This isn't me quibbling over plots. Suspending your disbelief with this movie is like believing a hospital of sick people would riot because doctors can't be trusted. But the reason I'm rating this film one star is because it fails to answer almost every question about why everything in this film happens. Why has the government suddenly become a bunch of sadists? Who are these apartment dwellers, and why do they lack all common sense? What's even going on with that ending? Every movie must have some sort of logic, even schlocky B movies with no budget. This movie spites all logic.

Good starting point to give us some ideas about COVID-19

My god what actor would look at this script, look at all the plot holes and go yep, I'll take the job. Well these morons did.

"Are you an artist? No.Yes. It's debatable." In "Tower Block" a group of residents were gradually slaughtered by a sniper and although they didn't really knew each other, they started relying on each other to save themselves from that situation. In "The Divide" it was about survivors of a nuclear attack locked in a cellar ending up in a chaotic struggle for survival. In the low-budget film "Containment", residents of several apartment buildings suddenly realize that their apartment is sealed off, there's no electricity or water and phones are dead. Meanwhile, a sort of field hospital is being set up between the buildings and several figures in orange safety suits escort people to it. Initially, there's the notification that a gas leak is the cause of all this trouble. But as a group of residents witness plain executions of fleeing victims, they realize that there's something more going on. A group consisting of Mark (Lee Ross), a not so successful artist with a failed marriage, the young couple Sally (Louise Brealey) and Aiden (William Postlethwaite), the aggressive Sergei (Andrew Leung) and his younger brother Nicu (Gabriel Senior) and a somewhat senile older woman called Enid (Sheila Reid), attempt to find a way out. After some thin cardboard-like walls were being demolished (especially by the energetic Sergei), these colorful individuals were able to form a group. A group of individuals who have no idea what's actually going on and who are also total strangers to one another. Soon they start to panic, despite there are messages broad-casted on the intercom that they all should remain calm. The images of hysterical neighbors who try to bash in their window and the aggressive removal of an entire family, clearly don't help with that. As a viewer you start asking yourself what the hell is going on. Is it something military? Or just another epidemic with a deadly virus in the leading role? And to be honest, this was the most successful part of this indie film. The way the viewer is kept in the dark and information about the entire situation is offered in dribs and drabs. Granted, the whole thing isn't very original and sometimes really looks cheap. No breathtaking action scenes or hallucinatory special effects. The acting wasn't very impressive either. Only Leung was able to convince me, and acted at times really grandiose. And especially Sheila Reid stood out with her demure and brilliant acting. And occasionally the humor was rather enjoyable. Despite the simple storyline and the typical features that come with this kind of film, Lemon succeeded to distance himself from the most obvious outcome. It's not just another film about a virus outbreak that turns innocent people into bloodthirsty zombies. The oppressive atmosphere maintained in this short film (also a plus). However, again those typical characters appeared as usual. The most positive side about this movie was the bigger picture behind this seemingly simplistic story. A story without a clear answer and open to conjecture. Not exactly a feature I'm a fan of, but here it didn't bother me that much. What did bother me were some practical issues. First of all, I admire the team that managed to seal all those windows and doors in the buildings in such a short time. That must have been a hell of a job. And furthermore I was dumbfounded that no one came up with the idea to throw something heavy through the windows. It don't think this organization succeeded in replacing all that glass by shock resistant material. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

Another bad British film it looks like they got actors from a supermarket they simply can't act im wondering did they get paid to act in this rubbish film or did they pay the film makers to give them a role in this film shame I couldn't rate 0

From the title and the movie jacket there is no mystery as to what "Containment" is about. There has been an outbreak of a mysterious virus and the British government wishes to contain it before it spreads too far. I've seen enough of these types of movies and a few of them have been done really well. I expected this movie to be along the lines of "Contagion", "REC" and others like them. "Containment" started off really hot. Right away the main character finds himself locked into his own flat. From that point on it is a matter of finding out why. He is joined by other neighbors and one of them is just a powder keg ready to blow. It was at the time of the neighbors joining one another that the movie began to sour for me. I get that you need drama in movies for them to be exciting and worthwhile and a lot of times the drama comes from the characters themselves, but these characters were just plain unlikable. I get that stressful situations brings about certain behavior, but is it too much for people (neighbors no less) to be in accord just once? Because they were quarantined together I had to put up with this maddening motley crew for the entire movie. The focus was very local, as in you knew nothing more than what was going on at the apartment building under quarantine so all decisions being made were with the information available to the imprisoned. The containment situation went from bad to worse as level-headedness gave way to hysteria.

This is one of those movies where the trailer was more entertaining than the movie. The acting wasn't all that bad. The budget for the suits was non-existent. Great premise that just fizzled out as it dragged itself towards the credits that were the highlight of the movie as you knew it was FINALLY OVER. It started off OK, building up the suspense. I was just a bit amazed that the producers opted for gluing the doors shut ? In reality it would've taken a tonne of glue a lot manpower and tonne of patience to get that right. But I digress, I enjoyed the first half of the film, but then it seemed to stop moving and felt like it was spinning its wheels. Then I realized that there weren't any monsters or aliens, just sick people being treated in a manner that is absurd. Just look how the Ebola virus was handled last year as a case in point. Anyway - the only movie I can compare this too, is the crazies, but that was WAY BETTER. There are only 2 types of movies I submit reviews of, those that are THAT bad, or THAT good. I'm sure from the above (and the rating, you can guess which kind of movie this is).

Mark wakes up late, missing a court appearance to find no water coming out of his taps, his communications cut off, and his door glued shut, he spies men outside in hazard suits and begins realising all is not as it should be. One by one the neighbours find a way of grouping together and opening the sealed door. So it's a little flawed, it feels like it was made as a student film, and Lee Ross is the nine millionth person we'd cast as a lead role in a thriller, but for my humble opinion I felt it worked rather well. Lee is a great comic actor, but also credible in a straight role, he's great. The film is totally stolen by Sheila Reid, straight out of Benidorm, it could have been written for Madge, she's so good. I expected an ambiguous ending and I wasn't disappointed, I kept expecting zombies and wondering if there'll be a follow up. Imagine waking up to these events? Thought provoking, in a similar way to Threads. More enjoyable then the reviews give it credit for. 7/10