Roman is taken to an antiseptic-looking room, and told that their plane was involved in a mid-air collision, and that it is rare, in such accidents, for there to be any survivors. When the film opens, he is on his way to receiving them at the airport. Not that it ruins the experience – the story is powerful enough to work on its own – but it would, I assume, rob the film of some of well-earned drama.Īrnold Schwarzenegger plays Roman, an immigrant who works a regular blue-collar job, loves his wife, and is excited about becoming a grandfather for the first time. But in many ways – most of all its devastating resolution – the best way to approach it would be to watch it without any knowledge of the real life events.
#Arnold schwarzenegger movie aftermath series
This tragedy, and the terrible chain of events it set into motion in its aftermath, is perhaps the only one that I remember from that Discovery Channel series Air Crash Investigation. A score by Mark Todd is inescapably bleak, while search and rescue sequences in the aftermath of the crash veer towards being exploitative.It’s the only moment of levity in a surprisingly and relentlessly sombre film about grief and the cyclical nature of revenge.Īftermath, another film in this new, more dramatic phase of Arnold’s career, is based on the infamous Überlingen mid-air collision of 2002, and the wake of destruction it left behind. Costuming choices are also interesting, particularly with Schwarzengger’s Russian immigrant. A recurring theme of viewing the action from above is thought-provoking, while jet engines are shown criss-crossing the blue skies, the only note of real colour in the piece. This is a revenge film only in its loosest definition, as Schwarzenegger’s character pursues an apology for his loss from anyone connected with the disaster.ĭoP Pieter Vermeer’s camera affords scant visual relief, emphasising the drab, down-at-heel interiors, from blue-collar homes to steely grey boardrooms. But this grim psychological drama becomes ever more ponderous as the grizzled Roman struggles to accept his loss and a depressed Jake loses his family and moves to a new town with a new name. This entire sequence, and the crippling grief and guilt Jake subsequently shoulders, are Aftermath’s most effective. Meanwhile, in some tautly-edited and -acted scenes entitled ‘Jake’, a collision between two jets takes place when an air traffic controller (McNairy) is momentarily distracted. Soon he’ll be entering the airport and receiving “the worst news that anyone will ever receive”. As he fixes “welcome” signs to his walls and takes a shower before heading off to the airport, his fate seems foretold. Working as a building site foreman, he’s shown in initial sequences entitled ‘Roman’ (after his character) to be a hard-working immigrant who has just managed to bring his wife, daughter, and unborn grandchild over from Kiev. There’s a stiltedness to Schwarzenegger’s performance – and the direction – which ultimately works in the film’s favour, but complicates the initial buy-in to Aftermath’s world. While Schwarzenegger is solid – almost literally, his face like granite and his movements stiff – and McNairy is completely committed in this tragic two-hander, Lester’s film is resolutely one-note, an unrelenting trip to personal hells which may struggle to entice audiences on release through Lionsgate Premiere on April 7. The original title, 478, refers to the number of days between the crash and his death.) (The fact Aftermath is based on a real-life German air crash only makes the viewing experience feel more grim in 2002, a mid-air collision in German airspace was blamed on an air traffic controller who was subsequently murdered by a relative of three of the victims. Grey skies, graveyards sludge, snow busted landscapes and broken-down humans populate Elliott Lester’s ( Love Is The Drug) unrelentingly bleak drama, produced by – amongst others – Darren Aronofsky through his Protozoa label. Here, again, Schwarzenegger plays a distraught father, this time a Russian émigré in working-class Columbus, Ohio, who falls into a dangerous depression when his family is killed in a plane collision inadvertently caused by air traffic controller Scoot McNairy.ĭoP Pieter Vermeer’s camera affords scant visual relief, emphasising the drab, down-at-heel interiors, from blue-collar homes to steely grey boardrooms And Aftermath (previously titled 478), from a script by Enemy’s Javier Gullon, digs even more downbeat than last year’s Maggie’s Children. Post-politics, there’s been a gloomy, anguished note to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film work.
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