Day Zero
Film Review by Alan Gary - Fanclubx Columnist
Reviewed at the Tribeca Film Festival 2007

http://www.dayzerothemovie.com/


What would YOU do? Serve honorably. Find a way out. Lose your mind.

We're talking about a military draft.

Day Zero, the movie, offers these choices. Starring Elijah Wood, Chris Klein, Jon Bernthal, Ginnifer Goodwin, Elisabeth Moss and Ally Sheedy. Directed by Bryan Gunnar Cole. Set in the possibly very near future, DZ premiered at the 6th annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, April, 2007. It is gripping, intense and bold. Yet the pace is as matter of fact as drinking a mochachinno with a friend at Starbucks. This does not make the movie bad. Rather, it serves to heighten the tension we feel while awaiting the decisions of the protagonists. Life rarely happens with a boom. It's more of a continuum. The subtle vacillations we experience on a daily basis concerning the mundane as well as extraordinary, are life.

DZ may not leave you with an answer you are hoping for. This, however, is a testament to the actors consistency of character. Their interpersonal relationships are challenged while they remain true to self. And YOU must decide what YOU would do in their shoes as well as your own. The stream of consciousness writing and simple, yet direct, directing complement DZ. If you want to see a movie which not only makes you feel, but also think, then Day Zero is for you.


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Day Zero | 2007 | 90 min | 2007 | USA

Directed By: Bryan Gunnar Cole

Screenwriter :
Rob Malkani

Producer :
Anthony Moody

Editors :
Bryan Gunnar Cole, Bill Pankow

Executive Producer :
Rob Malkani

Cast :
Elijah Wood, Chris Klein, Jon Bernthal, Ginnifer Goodwin, Elisabeth Moss, Ally Sheedy


Program Notes
It's nighttime in America--the draft has been reinstated. Our conflicting attitudes toward war are examined through the eyes of Aaron (Elijah Wood), George (Chris Klein), and Dixon (Jon Bernthal) as each prepares to report for duty and learns, individually, what it means to "serve with honor."
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Bryan Gunnar Cole makes a striking debut with Day Zero, crafting an all-too-believable American future in which the draft has been reinstated to fight the war on terror. With the help of screenwriter Rob Malkani, Cole ably speaks for a generation grappling with the global discord that affects their everyday lives. The nation's conflicting, and conflicted, attitudes toward war are examined through the eyes of three friends who have been given induction notices and just 30 days to report for duty. Feeling utterly unprepared but convinced that he must serve, novelist Aaron (Elijah Wood) embarks on a panic-stricken quest to prepare for the life of a soldier-enlisting the questionable help of a collapsing Bowflex machine and a hilariously disengaged therapist (Ally Sheedy). Corporate attorney George (Chris Klein) wishes to stay with his wife (Ginnifer Goodwin), a recent cancer survivor, rather than fight in a war that he believes is wrong, but avoiding service does not prove easy. Cabdriver Dixon (Jay Bernthal) is the most fearless and free of doubt, but he falls in love with a sociology student (Elisabeth Moss), and suddenly issues that always seemed black-and-white to him are not so simple. As reporting day, or day zero, draws nearer, the three friends, who could find mutual friendship only in a city like New York, fight, fall out, come together and comfort each other-as each in his own way discovers what it means to serve with honor. Though set in an imagined world, the film reflects how many young adults deal with war today. With a remarkable cast that handles the material perfectly, Day Zero is as much about the current political climate as it is about the relationships of the characters it follows.

http://www.dayzerothemovie.com/