Great Film (Maybe spoilers)

Here are extracts from a v good review from Filmcritic.com that totally agrees with you about it. Slight spoilers.


SCREENED AT THE 2007 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: Not an overt horror film, “Day Zero” is nonetheless a frightening ordeal, characters inhaling thick lungfuls of dread in a world close enough to our own to give the viewer a sense of unease and trepidation witnessing a situation told with such skill that the film prompts that ever important question, “What would I do?”.

Day Zero doesn’t engage the politics, instead going for visceral reactions from individuals dealing with their mortality, far more intelligent than burying emotional intensity under topical news and political rhetoric. It's a great September 11th reflection film- far more engaging than similar sociological examinations such as Spike Lee’s 25th Hour.

The performances are excellent. Characters wade in tension and fear, even Dixon, who accepts his lot but in his most private moments stares into the darkness wide eyed with apprehension at the fighting and dying to come. Ginnifer Goodwin is a standout amongst the supporting cast, a survivor who must watch her husband’s struggle with the draft, a death sentence of sorts not unlike the cancer he has seen her through. Elijah Wood puts in a career best here- simultaneously hilarious and disturbing.

The three leads carry the movie on their backs with strengths, weaknesses and stakes any member of the audience can relate to, and this is where the movie’s true success lies- in its ability to have the audience living in these hard times vicariously through these men, so alike in their reactions, fears, insecurities and strategies. We never see the battlefield, we don’t go to boot camp (the closest we get is Penn Station where the men must catch their train to their service location, so familiar to any of us locals, now a portal to war, the familiar turned insidious), but we can see everything these men know they will go through in their faces, and we must wonder how we would react in their place- the true mark of a successful story.

Director Bryan Gunnar Cole manages to inject a surprising amount of comedy throughout the proceedings, keeping the audience from being battered with the raw emotions and crushing severity of the situation. The laughs are most prominent in Elijah Wood’s bumbling, pitiable quest to toughen up mentally and physically for the rigors of army life (including amusing interludes with Ally Sheedy as an apathetic shrink preferring crossword puzzles to Wood’s anxieties). The humor is so well interspersed amongst the pathos it’s worth taking special note of Cole’s skill at balancing the flow of the story in this fashion, spooning a generous portion of the absurd to make the harder medicine go down.

I consider the whole a truly magnificent effort that I hope finds support and distribution.

I haven’t been able to see much of what Tribeca Film Festival has to offer this year, but I’m confident I’ve seen one of the best it has on hand.

I'm not reading anything, in case there are spoilers, but I just wanted to give an advice.
Totally OT, but this is going to help with SPOILERS

<spoiler> WRITE YOUR SPOILER </spoiler> but using [ and ] instead of < and >