Cargo - Netflix review

Shuffling onto Netflix without a huge amount of fanfare this week was Cargo, a zombie film starring Martin Freeman.
Freeman plays Andy, husband and father to Kay and Rosie, who are travelling on a houseboat in an attempt to survive a pandemic outbreak that turns infected people into zombies after 48 hours.
The film puts a new spin on the genre by having Andy infected quite early on in the film and faces a race against time to find a safe home for daughter before he succumbs to the infection and turns into one of the walking dead.
Written and directed by Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling, this is not your traditional zombie horror in the style of Night Of The Living Dead or even the remake of Dawn Of The Dead.
Just like the Australian outback where it is set, it is very sparse in terms of action or gore.
Instead it is more of a character study of a man faced with impossible choices to make to try and protect his family. It just so happens that this takes place within a zombie pandemic.
Cargo plays its cards close to its chest in terms of the reasons behind the outbreak and doesn't get bogged down in exposition as to when, where and why it happened because that it ultimately not important to Andy's story.
One can speculate from the odd visual clue that the disease was potentially spread from fracking the earth and has destroyed the urban areas on the coast, resulting in people moving inland to escape the epidemic.
Indeed, technology is all but redundant out here. The only technology that works are the FitBit-style wrist bands that count down the hours until the virus takes over.
The only people who seem to have a handle on the situation are the Aboriginals who spend their nights cleansing the land of these lost souls. This is clearly part of the filmmakers' ultimate message of the story where we must protect and cherish our land and heritage or risk losing our way of life.
Along his journey, Andy meets several different people who could potentially offer salvation but often end up showcasing the dark heart of humanity.
These encounters cause him to lose hope and contemplate taking not only his life but Rosie's as well for fear of leaving her behind to an even worse fate.
Freeman anchors the film with a strong, heartfelt performance where you can truly feel his pain, anger, frustration at the situation but also his love for his daughter that keeps him going to the very end.
The film's tagline is "He is her only hope. And her greatest threat". Not only does this describe the relationship between Andy and Rosie in the film but also the relationship between Netflix and these low budget, independent films that they have taken into their care.
Netflix does offer an avenue for filmmakers to get there films out there to an international audience but it all depends on Netflix's algorithms and marketing to ensure that they find that audience because there is a chance they could end up lost and forgotten like a zombie with its head buried in the sand.
Rare gems like this need championed and one hopes that, like Andy's wish for Rosie, it finds the perfect home because this is precious Cargo.

3 stars

EIFF 2015 - Maggie

Maggie is being sold on it being a zombie movie and the movie in which the world discovers that Arnie can act.
Only one of these facts are true and shockingly it is the second one because the former Governer and Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers what is arguably his finest on screen performance to date (although is that difficult given his previous benchmarks? After all he is a movie star rather than an actor).
As a father struggling to come to terms with the fact this his daughter will evolve into a zombie, Arnie delivers a surprisingly tender and emotive performance, even shedding the odd tear or two.
Despite it being marketed as a zombie movie, it is a far away from your typical zombie flick as Let The Right One In is from a vampire movie.
There is no widespread panic, massive scenes of desolation or Arnie fighting off hordes of the undead.
Instead at the heart of the film is a family drama where a biological outbreak has created a disease that causes people to slowly turn into the undead.
The disease is treated in the early stages just like any other, with patients patched up and sent home with a pamphlet on preventing the spread of the disease until it is time for them to "turn" and they are shipped off to quarantine.
Quarantine is meant to be where the infected are cared for in their final days but according to some, it is in reality a horrific place where all the infected are left to rot and feed off each other.
And so to the central crux of the story and what Maggie is really about.
The film is actually a comment on the moral dilemma of assisted suicide. Should Arnold allow his daughter to get taken to quarantine where the quality of her life is not assured and she slowly and painfully deteriorates into someone that they and she herself no longer recognises or does he do the humane thing and help her end her life?
All three central performances are strong, with Breslin providing a lot of pain and empathy as the girl who will turn and Joely Richardson offering a counterpoint to Arnold's desire to protect his daughter as the stepmom who doesn't see Maggie as one of her own.
The tagline for the film could have been "Don't Get Too Close" but this is close to being the freshest take on the zombie film since 28 Days Later and won't be undead on arrival in cinemas this July.

4 stars