User reviews

Right At Your Door taps into the current climate of fear caused by international terrorism, with a tale of a 'dirty' bomb attack on downtown Los Angeles that results in a cloud of toxic dust engulfing nearby residential areas.

Focusing on a married couple caught up in the disaster, the film seeks to wring tension from a rather inspired and decidedly awkward situation which sees husband Brad (Rory Cochrane) safely sealed inside his house (as instructed by the authorities), when his contaminated (and now potentially deadly) wife Lexi (Mary McCormack) turns up outside, demanding to be let in.

Such an intense situation requires class-A dialogue, top notch acting, and flawless plotting from start to finish in order to succeed, and, at first, it seems as though Right At Your Door might have what it takes: the promising opening, in which Brad gradually realises what is happening and then desperately attempts to locate his wife in all of the confusion, is well realised.

Unfortunately, as the film progresses and the action becomes concentrated on the dilemma faced by the terrified Brad and Lexi, too many mundane scenes of chit-chat, the inclusion of a couple of pointless characters, and some very ill-considered moments that really take some swallowing, ultimately mean that the movie fails to maintain its tension.

Towards the end, obviously sensing that his script desperately needs a boot up the rear, writer/director Chris Gorak tacks on a last minute 'shock' twist ending, but it is so far fetched that it is unable to save the film from being yet another example of a good idea let down by a poorly constructed script.

In Los Angeles, Brad (Rory Cochrane) and his wife Lexi (Mary McCormack) live in the suburb and are in love for each other. Brad is an unemployed musician and Lexi is financially supporting the family. She wakes up in the morning and heads in her convertible to the highway to work downtown.

Brad listens to the news that dirty bombs have just blown up in Los Angeles in a terrorist attack and the authorities warning people seal off doors, windows and any opening and stay home. The desperate Brad does not respect the curfew and drives his car to downtown, but he does not succeed in crossing the police barriers. He returns home and the worker Alvaro (Tony Perez) of his next door neighbor requests protection to Brad. They seal themselves off in the house and listen to the radio about the danger of the unknown chemicals and the panic of the population with the hospitals overcrowded. Out of the blue, Lexi returns home covered of chemical ashes. Brad has to come up to a decision about the unexpected return: should he open or not their house?

"Right at Your Door" is a tense and scary low budget movie by Chris Gorak. The movie is like a theater play and is supported by the outstanding screenplay, magnificent direction and top-notch performances of Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane. The twist in the end is absolutely unexpected and certainly makes the viewer think a lot about the attitude of Brad and how realistic this story is. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Toque de Recolher" ( "Curfew" )

I had a chance to catch this at SUNDANCE.

It was probably the best movie I saw at the festival, though I only saw a handful of other films.

It's a solid debut by Chris Gorak and not a waste of 90 minutes. The setup is very good, as is the pacing and cinematography. They made the most out of what little money they had.

I have to say that at times it bordered on horrifying, and could've been classified as a horror film if some of those moments continued. Since I've lived in Los Angeles for about five years, I was particularly affected by the scenario. It's a very real possibility LA could be hit with a dirty bomb, and the repercussions would probably be similar to what's in the film.

It does suffer from some holes and stretches in logic and performance, but most thrillers do, so that's not necessarily a slam.

I can't say I liked the ending, but I was gripped by the story and the way it was shot.

A solid thriller.

I was pleasantly surprised. This is not the same as other toxic explosion movies such as Threads (1984), The Day After (1983) and the less memorable Testament (1983). This movie is harder to relate to and did not scare me in the same way. It focuses much more on a close relationship between a couple caught up in a fictional terrorist attack. It is much less about total destructive paranoia and more intimate. The movie is very well made. It looks very believable. The way that the movie has been made feels honest. The relationship is gripping from start to finish.

The film opens with an unemployed musician, played by Rory Cochrane who was great in A Scanner Darkly but can't seem to flesh out his hero here past a certain point, showing a tender servile nature by making a cup of latté for his wife Lexi, played by Mary McCormack, who is still in bed. She soon leaves for work and Cochrane is at home alone. Time passes and over the radio he hears that numerous alleged dirty bombs have been set off across downtown Los Angeles. He sees significant quantities of smoke mounting from the city center. His instantaneous judgment is for his wife and her wellbeing so he drives in the direction of the city center to find her.

While it is a small-budgeted dramatic film more than anything it may seem to have pretensions about being, Right at Your Door shows several real matters Homeland Security planners are under immense pressure to handle like the interference with telecommunication because of so many calls, or the worried well who assemble to hospitals and emergency shelters and overpower emergency services, a great deal about the threat of contaminated people coming into hospitals and the necessity for facilities in which to work on decontamination. There are troubles through risk communication to the general public, the dilemma of enforcing containment after a biological attack, and the potential benefit of the Postal Service to circulate medications. It is resourceful to weave these predicaments into a dramatic narrative, a fundamentally theatrical one at that, one that is dialogue-driven more than anything.

However this standard LA-based twist-dependent thriller also uses many erroneous facets like, frankly, the use of the term "dirty bomb," or a biological agent used as an additive in a bomb, and Homeland Security recommending for people to seal a single room sooner than the entire home. Even though this paranoid thriller maintains as a vital element to the story that a virus can develop and become more lethal just by being confined, a virus needs the infection of a living thing to reproduce.

Right At Your Door taps into the present feeling of apprehension brought about by worldwide terrorism, with a fable of an attack on downtown LA that causes a haze of toxic dust overcoming adjacent suburbs, where many people generally feel the safest. Concentrating on a married couple mired in the catastrophe, Chris Gorak's script aims to squeeze frantic drama from a somewhat clever and unquestionably thorny circumstance which perceives Cochrane securely sealed inside his house as instructed by people in charge, when his infected and now possibly lethal wife McCormack arrives insisting to be allowed to enter. Such a strong dramatic conflict needs dialogue, acting, and plotting that are just as strong all the time to make it.

Alas, as the exactly ninety-minute-long film advances and the conflict grows determined upon the catch-22 challenging the fate of the two petrified leads, an excess of humdrum scenes of inert dialogue and some especially half-baked moments that put a strain on suspension of disbelief in the end lead the movie to fail to sustain its tautness.

First off the acting is very good for this low buget movie. A very realistic story that isnt that action packed but the story and how its played out is very realistic.

When a series of dirty bombs are set off in Los Angeles the populace are told to stay indoors with windows and doors sealed. Brad's wife was in the area of the attacks though, so his priority is to get to her and make sure she is safe. With the authorities shutting down all the major roadways, Bard is forced to return home and start securing the house with the help of the labourer from next door, who has no way of getting to his own home. With only the radio for information, Brad waits for any news while, at the same time, an exposed Lexi tries to get back home.

This was a reasonably topical film at the time, perhaps not "hot on the heels" of 9th September 2001, but the fear of terrorist attacks on the West had not subsided five years later – and indeed it is still a button that can be pushed as we saw even as recently as 2008's US election. As a result I did want to see this but just never got round to doing so until the other week, mainly because it never showed up much on video or television for some reason. The film opens with its strongest card – the attacks, the initial panic, the initial fear and the initial moral questions. All of this is good and it does touch a nerve. The problem comes when the film has played that card and cannot get much more mileage from the emotions that many viewers will already have. This gives us a second half (or the remaining two-thirds to be honest) that doesn't work as well at all.

The plot brings characters in and out, has little things to fill the time and none of it ever convinces in the way the opening third did. It doesn't help that we don't really ever get into the characters so we don't feel a terrible lot for the people and indeed end up just questioning what they are doing and thinking – mainly because they are not real to us so we don't accept what they are doing. It heads towards a conclusion that would work well on the Twilight Zone perhaps but here it just seems like a dramatic way to finish for the sake of having a dramatic finish rather than fitting with the characters and narrative than I had just spent 90 minutes on. The cast are not the blame because they do give solid turns – particularly McCormack and Cochrane. OK the child (Noyd) is weak but in fairness so was his character.

Overall Right at Your Door opens well and the "pitch" concept is delivered upon pretty well. When it comes down to having another 60 minutes to fill after this though, it is not that good and it doesn't convince or engage as it should. A shame but as a total film it is average at best and instead of being part "realistic emotional drama" and part "Twilight Zone-esquire thriller" it would have been better shorter, simpler and filmed as a Twilight Zone episode.

Quite the solid independent disaster flick, Right at Your Door is a stellar example of making a limited budget work in your favor by effecting us more with two fine actor's insinuations then with huge, mass-extras-driven scenes. Chris Gorak, who has been involved behind the scenes with some modern day classics such as Fight Club and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, makes an impressively tense debut at the helm with this fast-paced, very realistic terrorism scenario executed over Los Angeles one day.

From the outset Gorak infuses his survival drama with a tremendously brisk pace, highlighting the confusing and paralyzing fear which would engulf nearly everyone presented with the same scenario. Many parallels can obviously be made to the September 11th attacks as well as Gorak's not-so-subtle criticism of government rescue operations ala Katrina, but everything seems exploited in just the right way as to make the fear actually feel viable as we watch from the safety of our chairs.

The third act does wind things down possibly a little too slowly compared to the full-throttle assault that was the first thirty minutes, although despite lapses in logic now and then I felt the movie represented an honest scenario the best it could up until a poetic, but underdeveloped and gimmicky ending.

A brisk, tense, stripped-down thriller set against a chemical attack on Los Angeles, focussing on a woman who was heading into the city as the explosions happened and her husband at home. If the film's central dilemma is pretty predictable from the outset (not least given the title), it's well-executed, the two main performances are good and the short running time is in its favour. It takes on extra resonance this side of a pandemic, and the ending shows some story-telling guts.

It doesn't take a big budget to make a good movie about what it would be like to be in a big city in a terror attack. Terror is after all, a personal emotion. Whatever the state of your relationship at that moment, that's where the picture freezes. You're not fully moved in, you hate your family, you had a fight... that's where things stand when the bombs go off. And if you're not blasted or burned or crushed in the initial blast, and if you're moderately resourceful, you'll find a way to survive -- for a while at least. And then you hope the 'authorities' do the right thing and come to save you. If you've thought about all of these things, you will appreciate how Chris Gorak plays it all out. This is not a movie for everyone. If you want all your questions answered, a big studio popcorn movie is probably more your style. But if you appreciate the exercise of putting yourself in the protagonist's shoes, this is a great ride.

The 9-11 experience has given new relevancy to movies about terrorist attacks. In Right at Your Door, writer and first-time director Chris Gorak shows the impact of a sudden attack in Los Angeles. Similar to Spielberg's War of the Worlds, Gorak chooses to focus exclusively on the impact of the events on one couple—Lexi, a professional woman who works downtown (Mary McCormack) and her husband Brad (Rory Cochrane), an out-of-work musician.

Right at Your Door adeptly explores the human implications of a scenario that seems all too plausible in today's world. At the onset of the attack there is fear, panic, despair, disorientation and poor judgment. However, as the reality of the situation settles in, a survival instinct emerges, a certain calculating rationality. And finally, Brad and Lexi must face the many moral conflicts that can plague us in times of limited resources, dangerous conditions and life and death decisions. Layered on all of this are further apprehensions and uncertainties that must be dissected: Who can you trust? What does the government know? Whose advice do you listen to? What do we tell our friends and family? It is these issues that make viewing Right at Your Door a powerful and troubling experience. We see a little bit of ourselves in these characters, and it is easy to wonder how we would react in the face of these tragic circumstances. This movie will come back to you in moments of quiet contemplation.

Gorak has made a very good movie, especially given his very limited budget and complete lack of directing experience (he been a production assistant on another movie, but has never directed anything before). I particularly like his decision not to provide any information about where the attacks came from. It's probably not all that realistic, as surely the media would be engage in non-stop speculation, but it served to focus the emotions on those things that really mattered to the characters.

Interesting tidbit from the Sundance Q&A: Some of the scenes of smoke rising over the skyline used actual footage from the bombing in Iraq.