- Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
- Written by Paul Tremblay, M. Night Shyamalan, Steve Desmond
- Stars Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wiBHEACNHs
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s pretty easy to guess what’s happening early on, but that doesn’t lessen it. It’s an interesting story and situation. The acting is great and the character reactions are believable. All in all we really enjoyed it.
Synopsis
Little girl Wen catches some bugs in a jar. She names them and writes stuff about them in her book. She sees a large man walking toward her through the woods. He politely introduces himself as Leonard. He offers to help her catch grasshoppers. She mentions that she has two dads, Eric and Andrew. Something is off, and Leonard keeps looking in the direction that he came from. He says his heart is breaking over what he has to do today…
Others are coming. “The four of us have a very important job to do. In fact, it might be the most important job in the history of the world.” Leonard tells Wen that she and her dads will soon have to make tough decisions.
Wen goes inside and warns Eric and Andrew, but they don’t take her seriously. Leonard knocks and asks them to open the door. Wen’s clearly upset, so they don’t let him in. He, along with Sabrina, Adriana, and Redmond would like to come in and talk. They try to call the police, but there’s no dial tone. “We need to talk. We don’t have a choice.”
Eric and Andrew barricade the doors and lock the windows, but from the look of the place, that won’t slow people down for long. Eric gets knocked out as the group makes their way inside. It soon becomes obvious that the four intruders have control of the situation. But they also seem reluctant about the violence.
We flashback to Eric and Andrew having dinner with Andrew’s parents. They are not supportive of the couple.
Eric and Andrew are now tied up, but Sabrina patches up Eric’s head wound. Leonard tries to explain, but the whole home invasion thing makes him a little hard to believe. He says they had no choice, and the attack has nothing to do with them being a same-sex couple.
Sabrina explains that she’s a nurse who lives in California. She spent most of her life savings on this trip to talk to them. Leonard is a second-grade teacher from Chicago. Redmond works for a gas company in Massachusetts. Adriane is a cook at a Mexican restaurant, and she has two cats.
Leonard tells them, “The four of us are here to prevent the apocalypse. We can stop it with your help. Whether the world ends or not is entirely up to you three. Your family must decide to sacrifice one of the three of you to avert the apocalypse. If you fail to choose or follow through with the sacrifice, the world will end. You haven’t done anything wrong; you’re just the family chosen to decide for us at this time.”
The four have all had very specific visions which led them to each other and to this cabin. They don’t know why. Andrew says he sounds like every apocalyptic doomsayer there ever was.
Redmond gets on his knees and puts a mask over his head. The other three kill him in front of their prisoners. We flashback to Eric and Andrew in China, when they came to adopt Wen. In the present the three kidnappers react badly to killing Redmond.
Leonard turns on the TV, and they’re talking about a huge earthquake and a tsunami warning. He says that Redmond’s death will release a plague of destruction. Except they report no deaths or injuries. Suddenly, there’s a second massive catastrophic earthquake that has caused a massive tsunami washing in to parts of the Western United States. The three intruders say they all saw this in their vision. Yeah it’s a BBIIGG one.
Leonard tells them that they will have to choose tomorrow morning, or there’ll be another huge disaster. Andrew says that everyone in the world can die for all he cares, but Eric, who’s got a mild concussion, seems more certained.
Sabrina talks to Eric about her visions; she hasn’t been to church in decades, so it’s not a religious thing. At some point, Wen runs off into the woods and hides from Leonard, but he soon finds her. Andrew remembers that Redmond “is that man from the bar.” Andrew mentioned that he served some time, and Andrew says it’s because of gay-bashing. Leonard and Adriane say that none of that matters.
Andrew says the three are having a group delusion that has been made worse by posting on a message board. Morning comes, and Leonard says it’s time to choose. Adriane says they’re her last hope because she’s next. She begs them to make it stop. Andrew is still hostile, but Eric wants to know what they saw. She gets down on her knees and puts on a mask. She’s soon killed just like Redmond was.
“We’ve unleashed a second plague. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. Turn on the news.” They get a report of a new virus that attacks children explicitly. It’s a brand-new deadly flu. Andrew says the news reports were pre-programmed and that Leonard and Sabrina knew these things were going to happen.
The guys have been working on their ropes. When Wen makes a distraction, Andrew runs outside for his gun in the car. Sabrina starts to break in the window as he tries to open the gun safe. He runs her off into the woods but she comes back to the cabin, where he shoots her.
Leonard asks them one more time if they’re willing to make a sacrifice, and when they refuse, he hacks up Sabina. Andrew goes outside to find Redmond’s wallet; he definitely is the guy who broke beer bottles over his head years ago. He comes back inside and locks Leonard in the bathroom. Leonard tricks them into letting him out.
Eric turns on the TV, and they watch all the airplanes fall from the sky, just as Leonard predicted yesterday. Andrew is still in denial; he think’s it terrorists. Leonard quotes the newscaster before she even says it.
Andrew wants to get in the intruder’s car and leave; Eric believes it all now. Deep down, Andrew believes it too. Leonard insists that they all go outside for his own death. “When I’m gone, you’ll only have minutes to stop everything,” he says. “The worst thing about the visions was the screaming. I knew the screaming would just go on and on.” He once again begs them to make a choice and save the world. Then he cuts his own throat.
The sky turns dark, and thunder begins. Lightning starts blasting in the woods outside. Eric says they only have a few minutes and knows he saw something when Redmond died. “Maybe this is how it’s always been. Maybe families have always been making decisions like this.” Eric says those were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Eric hands Andrew the gun and begs him to kill him. He believes it all now. He talks about seeing Andrew and Wen in the future, and then the gun goes off.
Andrew finds Wen in the treehouse, and she asks if he saved everyone. Outside, the cabin burns to the ground. They walk down the road to Leonard’s truck and get inside. “Did we stop it in time?” Wen asks.
They stop at a diner and watch the TV in there. Suddenly, the floods have receded, the plague deaths have stopped, the planes stopped falling, and the sudden lightning strikes have ceased as well. When they get back in the car, he finds the four intruders’ ID cards and belongings; they were all who they claimed to be.
Yes, they did save the world.
Commentary
Can you imagine having Dave Bautista as your second-grade teacher? That’d be terrifying!
We immediately figured out the Four Horsemen connection as the four introduced themselves. It’s an interesting story and situation, but it’s also somewhat similar to other “Revelations” kinds of stories.
It’s a weird situation with great characters. Leonard is calm and sensible throughout, even though his story is insane. The acting here is good throughout, and everyone acts believably considering what’s going on.
And the best part is, it’s an M. Night Shyamalan film that DOESN’T have a twist ending.
It’s actually good.