Review - The Trigger Effect

Allow me, if you will to go back to 1996 and the under the radar thriller The Trigger Effect.

Written (with James Burke) and Directed by David Koepp, this tells the story of society that falls apart at an alarming rate when the power mysteriously goes off.

The movie plays out as more of character study than anything else. The dynamics between and within family, neighbourhoods and indeed from stranger to stranger. It is how mistrust, anger and desperation are passed on from human to human, like the first domino to fall sets off the rest

The ever awkward Kyle MacLachlan plays Matthew a buttoned down office worker who lives with his wife Annie (Elizabeth Shue) and their baby. It seems as though Matthew is very much the non-alpha male as shown in the first few scenes. When the power goes off, Kyle's brother Joe (Dermot Mulroney) comes over and it seems that Annie is drawn towards Joe because of the Alpha Male tendencies he displays.

The Trigger Effect plays off the themes explored in films like Straw Dogs and what you will do to survive but with the decisions, outcomes and endings all playing differently to how you would think. Joe being the Alpha male and Matthew trying maintain his own sense of civilised behaviour and the two contradictions play off against each other, which leads to an interesting dynamic between the two.

A nice, tight little thriller with plenty of suspense, the Trigger Effect is worth hiring out from the weekly section of the local video store.