Contagion Review

Contagion is a slick and tightly paced disaster film, subtle yet horrifying in its depiction of a world in chaos due to an outbreak of an unknown virus. The star studded cast includes Matt Damon and Kate Winslet among many others all under the masterful craft of Steven Soderbergh. Contagion manages to capture in the most eerily realistic way possible the backdoor politics and sciences that are involved in creating a cure and alerting the public on a world-wide epidemic.

Soderbergh shines a light on many facets of the mass hysteria from freelance bloggers spreading rumors and persecuting those at the CDC, as well as how scientist would even begin finding a cure for an all new highly contagious virus. Its dour but never depressing, trading sinking hopelessness for a more wide eyed look at the events as they transpire from through the eyes of several characters. Matt Damon whose wife and son her among the first to be afflicted and killed by the virus must protect his daughter as an ever more hysterical and violent population grows restless for a cure. Lawrence Fishburne who heads up the CDC must face the media and the every growing conspiracy that the vaccine is being kept from the general public.

Contagion doesn't depict any one side as necessarily evil, as pharmaceutical companies rush to find a cure but also clearly intend to make huge profits from the pandemic. While conspiracy bloggers point fingers at the government and politics. Even a hostage taking Chinese health official merely wants to save a small fishing village where his family lives. There are one too many plots going on throughout the movie and at least one feels entirely arbitrary and could have been excised completely without a single effect on the movie as a whole.

Contagion is a fast moving often times scary disaster movie. It strikes an interesting balance between showing how the many facets of government the world over would handle a situation like this even if they aren't always depicted in the best light. My biggest relief comes from Soderbergh deft navigation through what is clearly a hot button issue between the american people and its government, the movie is never heavy handed and doesn't push any agenda and I was hugely appreciative to that fact.

(4 out of 5)