A1nut This movie illustrates a solid reason why prepping for bad situations is a good idea. It only takes two days of the power being off for people to begin turning on each other. If everyone had been prepared, that wouldn't have been an issue. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that everyone should build a bunker in their basement stocked with 20 years worth of food. But a two week supply of food, water and a weapon with which to defend yourself could be the difference between life and death in a situation like this.So, all in all, a mediocre movie with a strong message. It never hurts to be prepared.

mickeyhfgg The Trigger Effect is kinda like the little engine that could...but didn't. It simply falls flat, and it is all due to a script that is chock full of gaping errors and head scratching moments.I have to give away some spoilers to prove my point, so stop here if you wish to be surprised.Here are some of the examples about inconsistencies, and other head scratching problems.At one point, the three leads decide to venture outside to witness the insanity caused by the blackout. But they leave the baby at home, alone, unattended, while it's sick with a fever, and there is no electricity.I can understand long lines at places like a gas station or a grocery store or hardware store, but Kyle goes to a pharmacy and a gun shop where there are lines practically out the door. OK, maybe the gun shop I'll accept, but a pharmacy? All of a sudden people need to go to the pharmacy? Why now? And then Kyle gets into these totally unnecessary heated arguments with the pharmacist and the gun shop owner. Why?? If he would just talk to them in a calm, rational manner, he would have been able to get what he needed like the medicine from the pharmacist. It just made no sense. It's like, Kyle, calm down, dude! After Rupert is shot, and they end up losing their car and having to use Michael Rooker's car instead, they try desperately waving cars down on the road to help them, but to no avail. Why didn't they just place Rooker's car in the middle of the road to block traffic? This would cause all oncoming drivers to stop, then that way Kyle could have asked them for a ride to a hospital. But nooooo, what does Kyle do instead? He runs all the way to that lone farmhouse that he ends up breaking into---and this brings up even more questions: Why did Kyle run all the way to the farmhouse for help? He passes a NUCLEAR FACILITY. Don't you think that the NUCLEAR FACILITY would have MANY people working inside? People who could have helped him get to a hospital? But, noooooo, he runs to the farmhouse.When he gets to the farmhouse, he gets into yet another heated argument with the owner for no reason whatsoever. Had he just remained calm, I am sure the owner would help him. But, nooooo, they fight which causes Kyle to return later with the rifle that he gave to his wife to keep with her for protection. So, let's think about this. It means that Kyle ran from Rooker's car passing the NUCLEAR FACILITY to get to the farmhouse where he gets into a verbal fight with the owner, then ran back from the farmhouse passing the NUCLEAR FACILITY again to get to the car to get the rifle, then he runs from the car passing the NUCLEAR FACILITY yet again in order to get to the farmhouse where he gets into a gun fight with the owner after he unnecessarily breaks into it. Are you confused, too? So am I! At the beginning of the movie, there is a sequence where a woman obliviously cuts into a line at a concession stand to get popcorn. Except for one person, no one else in this looooong line complains that this woman just cut right into them. Not even the concessionaire tells her to get to the back of the line. Wow. Such a kind, forgiving group of people.At a time where cash is of the utmost importance, our leads happen to come across an ice cream truck (!!!???!!!) on the side of the road, and decide to blow some of their ever-so important cash---on ICE CREAM??? And why is this truck there to begin with, and how is the vendor keeping the treats frozen when there is no electricity? A man breaks into Kyle and Elisabeth's house. After they chase the criminal into the street, their neighbor ends up shooting and killing the guy. For the rest of the film, Kyle resents the fact that his neighbor did this. Why? The criminal was even waving a switchblade in the middle of the street when he was shot, but for some reason I guess Kyle felt that his neighbor's action was too extreme. If this were me, I'd be kissing and bowing down to my neighbor thanking him for killing the guy!!! I mean, he just broke into my house carrying a weapon which I'm sure he would have used on me, my wife and my child. Yet Kyle, I guess, ends up resenting his neighbor for doing this good deed. Whatever.I know it's 1996, but doesn't one single person in this entire HUGE city own a cell phone?!?!? I could go on, but I'm sure you will find the same problems with this script that I did. The more I think about it, I realize that people in this movie just don't act rationally. I know that during a blackout people will do the strangest of things, but it's just that there are so many inconsistencies and scenes that make no sense whatsoever. Unfortunately, Koepp is a master of the Head-Scratching screenplays. His films are certainly entertaining, but there are many times when you just sit there and say, "Whuh? That makes no sense"! And this movie has a lot of those scenes. Too bad because it really is a fun idea.

Steve Pulaski The Trigger Effect is a movie I'm not proud to like, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't. It wasn't a fantastic thriller, but it shouldn't get the beating it's getting on IMDb, Netflix, and every other review site. The acting isn't phenomenal, the plot isn't much, but the events in the film keep you at least interesting and hoping for the best. In the long run, The Trigger Effect is not the worst thing to come out of movies ever.Sometimes, I believe, when a movie is panned by critics and moviegoers, a film gets bad reviews by everyone whether they like it or not. I looked on the IMDb Bottom 100 before writing this review, and thought, there's got to be one person out there that likes some of these films. I scanned about twenty, and the twenty I picked had no review above two out of ten. My point; not everyone can hate a movie. It can't be so bad no one likes it. This is kind of how I feel with this film and the 1996 comedy Bio-Dome which I found to be an entertaining film. The only difference with The Trigger Effect is I could find someone who liked Bio-Dome. I have yet to find someone that (honestly) admits they like The Trigger Effect.The film has no real plot. It takes place in Southern California where our two protagonists reside. Matt (Kyle MacLachlan) and Annie (Elizabeth Shue) return home from the movies to find their infant screaming with an ear ache. Matt calls a doctor who promises to have a prescription filled by morning. In the middle of the night, the neighbors wake to find a the town has blacked out. Matt arrives at the pharmacy to find out the doctor didn't call in the prescription, so he resorts to stealing the medicine for the baby.Matt's brother Joe (Dermot Mulroney) arrives at the house to convince the couple to buy a gun for security since the blackout is causing very strange behavior amongst the town. When purchasing the gun, the four come to the consensus that they must take a trip to wife's parent's house. Soon enough, all hell breaks loose.The film is no masterpiece, but it shouldn't get the beating it is taking on the web now. It's a very least intriguing. You want to know what happens to these innocent people. You want to follow them through this journey through hell. As most of these events occur, they trigger another thing to happen (obviously why the film's title is what it is). Clearly the person behind this idea wanted no light at the end of the tunnel. Just like the film Where the Heart Is or The Quiet, they wanted no light at the end of the tunnel.Upon it's release, it grossed a mere $1,887,791, and ranked 12th at the Box Office. It came up very short compared to it's $8,000,000 budget. It went on to gross around $3,000,000 in it's entirety, and lead on to never being spoken about again. While I think in no means it should be praised, it should at least be recognized for doing the job it did. It didn't want to be bad, but then again no movie does. It just showed it's limitations on screen, and nothing more. It doesn't want to be anything more than it's budget allows. It's a good thing and a bad thing simultaneously.Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue, and Dermot Mulroney. Directed by: David Koepp.

A.N. I thought this was a tightly-made survival piece and was surprised by the number of downbeat reviews. Good grief, people, this was hardly a bad film!It might be a case of herd-negativity; one person reads a bad review, gets a bias, and so on. That is, unless they saw an edited version on TV that was too trimmed-down. A TV viewing should always be noted by reviewers, since it often ruins movies by cutting crucial scenes.This movie starts with a strong sequence about random people getting on each other's nerves, with a sense of general foreboding that something bad is looming, although you knew that going in.Then, it progresses quite seamlessly toward a societal breakdown scenario, without giving away too much information on the cause. That keeps the mystery going, which many films fail to do by letting the cat fully out of the bag. It's also presented from the viewpoint of a handful of people, not some national command center with the usual political bickering.The tension between the married couple goes along well with the growing sense of general insecurity. I didn't find it contrived at all. At no point in the film was I able to guess how it was going to turn out, which is the way it would be in a survival situation. The ending could have gone either way.Yes, there were some logical holes, but nothing truly glaring. It was entertaining enough to not inspire second-guessing.I'd already seen the James Burke "Connections" episode of the same title which inspired this film. They gave it a visual nod early on, and that made it all the more entertaining.I think "The Trigger Effect" is well worth your time unless some negative reviewer turned you against it, which is ironically how people behave in mobs when order breaks down!