Contagion, review

Contagion

2011, ****, R

Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Lawrence Fishburne

This movie is essentially like the film “Outbreak,” starring Dustin Hoffman in 1995. Essentially, Gwyneth Paltrow is on a business trip in Asia and comes home to Minnesota to her husband Matt Damon and son, and soon after arriving home, she's rushed to the emergency room and dies minutes after arriving.

Her husband, (Damon) is stunned and doesn’t even realize what just happened, due to the severe shock of his wife’s sudden passing, and when he returns home he and his babysitter realize his son has also died in his bed. The emergency room doctors aren't sure of the cause however they believe it is some sort of virus she contracted while overseas. This is the start of the movie, and it is unclear as to what she died from, however, there are various cases similar to hers popping up slowly across the United States, and it soon turns into an epidemic.

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) out of Georgia, headed by Lawrence Fishburne, is on various media outlets explaining that there is a virus that is very deadly and is airborne, if you are not immune to it; luckily Matt Damon was not infected by his wife because he was found to be immune to this particular strain of infectious disease, when they checked him out in the ER in a confined area.

The film is captured in about a 4 to 5 months’ time. Scientists in the United States as well as overseas are vigorously trying to figure out what exactly the viruses is, and how it mutates and cell structure to become the “host.” Meanwhile pharmaceutical companies are trying to develop vaccinations as well as drugs to help the already ill individuals. Then you have people trying to steal information about the drugs, and panic and fear is running ramped all over the globe.

Jude Law plays a journalist who also has some sort of biology or chemistry background believes that he has come up with the cure, and injects himself with it, even when he already starts to come down with the symptoms of sweating cold chills and total downfall of health. He survives, and he is right about the cure. However, Lawrence Fishburne and him have a verbal debate on a national television, and basically Lawrence Fishburne tries to be very wary about his words but tries to be very convincing that they have not found a cure for this strain of virus, but they are working around the clock to take precautions as well as find a vaccination and help the sick.

Jude Law tells him he's a bunch of BS and basically says, “You all have a cure you're just saving it for your families and friends and are watching everyone drop over and really are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies.” Law is very emphatic and believes the government is withholding information that could help the population survive the epidemic. It's really a pandemic because millions of people on the globe die in this movie, “Contagion.”

I believe the movie points out how we are all extremely vulnerable as a society, to disease and hings could go very wrong, very fast. At the very end of the movie the virus is revealed of how it came to surface, with a series of snapshots from a video of when Paltrow was overseas.

Overall, this movie is well done, intense and upsetting. You will have a different look on life, and you are in a survival mode with Matt Damon and his daughter (biological daughter in the film, that shows up after she hears about what happened to her step-mom – Paltrow) as well as Kate Winslet who plays a W.H.O. field analyst trying to understand how quickly the virus is spreading.

I really like the cast of this movie. The film is worth a watch if you are a fan of world health issues and want to be informed of potential hazards that our nation faces in this type of situation. Also, Matt Damon isn't too shabby to stare at either.