Review of The Domestics (2018) by Allan C — 21 Jul 2018

I had Fairly high hopes for this movie when I first sides trailer. The first thing that made me interested, in fact, was how brief the trailer was and how much of the world already set up without addressing the story. It gave the audience just enough to go off of before they could get invested into the film. Orion Studios has always been a producer of some of my favorite films, so that was another selling point. Here's some of the good that I saw and some of the bad.

Right off in the beginning, it somewhat subverts the common doomsday movie where people not only try to survive, but also try to figure out what caused it and how they can solve it on a grander scale. And with that solving plot line, many movies have a very complex and sometimes confusing story that's addressed in the exposition. That is nowhere to be seen here. The exposition Was Made Simple and very clear right from the beginning and wrapped up in less than 3 minutes. The rest of the film is solely about survival, and gives off a strong post-apocalyptic Warriors feel, with the various types of gangs and their clear stylistic differences. The Romantic connection between the two protagonists starting out as complicated and gradually getting stronger as they travel together doesn't feel played out as an epic revitalizing of their love, it's showing that it's always there by the remnants from their past that they carry and it's shown that there tensions are more about disagreeance, which would most likely be amplified in aggravation during such a volatile scenario. Beyond the plot being a run-of-the-mill, but well portrayed, survival plot, the acting was not without essence. Some of the moment seemed awkward, but not forced. The dialogue seemed run of the mill, with nothing standing out, but some of the choices in actor movement didn't seem natural. The use of firearms in this movie is Stellar in variety, and show a knowledge of firearms by avoiding some of the misconceptions that movies tend to play up. For instance, there's a scene where one of the actors has a suppressed pistol and rather than having it extremely quiet, the shot actually rings off of its surroundings slightly. Also, many of the actors actually show safety with the Firearms by not keeping their finger on the trigger all the time, so it's nice to show a more respectful side to the firearms.

My only few complaints are that some of the important aspects of the film lacked substance and many of the events that occurred fell into a "and then" succession of linearity. These could absolutely be products of the survival theme that the film was going with, but the characters that we were supposed to get attached to didn't give a lot of reason to get attached to them. As for the "and then" problem, it can easily be overlooked if one looks at the film as environmentally driven rather than plot-driven. These things just didn't seem bold or embellished enough in something so stylistic,.

All in all, it's a refreshing take on the apocalypse genre that's been embraced moreover recent years. It doesn't make Heroes it just makes people wanted to survive. If you have an hour and 35 minutes in spare time and the means to watch this, I would highly recommended doing so.