Review of The East (2013) by Steven B — 14 Jun 2013

Brit Marling has gone from acting in Indies and not widely seen main horror movies to writer/director/producer in just a few years. This film had high ambition but it is spoiled by a poor script (jointly written by Marling and director Batmanglij).

I won't go into all the factual errors but the most egregious is crucial to the plot: a drug, which they call an 'antibiotic', is responsible for brain damage and death. The East 'jams' the pharmaceutical company that made it.

The trouble is that they talk about the drug being an 'anti-malarial' and used prophylactically for Anthrax and such. Malaria is, of course, a parasite disease and anti-biotics would not be used and anti-biotics are rarely used prophylactically and anthrax is only treated after exposure, but a vaccine is available.

There are other major and minor errors here and it put me off the entire movie. While well acted and it has some good points in the end I didn't buy any of it. I know the critics are over the top on this one but I didn't care for it.