GlukeMore

All politics aside, I liked the movie a lot. It was very tense, and all four of the lead actors did a great job. They made the movie feel real, scary, and tragic. I had no clue how the story was going to end, which kept the tension level high. I was feeling the same panic that the characters were feeling. The soundtrack really stood out as well, and fit the movie perfectly. Everything felt very 'real life.'

There was only one thing that really brought down the movie for me, and that was the whole subplot involving Tyler's girlfriend. Ultimately, it did set up the climax, but most of it felt unnecessary. Some of the most intense scenes were directly followed by a scene with her planning a party with her friends. It's like the movie suddenly changed genres. That's not to say anything against the actress, since she did a good job. It just felt like they tried to force in another story where it wasn't needed.

I'd talk about the politics of the movie, but I don't feel that's needed. The movie itself didn't feel very political, there were only a couple scenes that had obvious political statements.

I rented this from a redbox on a whim one night, not really giving it much thought. When I picked it out, it reminded me of the TV movie "American Blackout" that came out on nat geo a while back, which had a very similar plot. But "The Blackout" surprised me, it looked good, had solid acting, and above all it had a story was realistic and not over the top. Even minor things really stood out to me, like how loud the gunshots were (it's a pet peeve of mine when gunshots are too quiet in movies). It gave that same feeling the TV show "Jericho" did, where you don't know what's going on, so the anxiety levels are up there. This movie gave me a pretty good adrenaline rush on more than one occasion. I would have liked to have seen a little more of how the survivalist made use of his preparations though, but that's not something that took away from the movie.