everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Crappy film

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The lights go out in the city in the middle of the night. Matthew (Kyle MacLachlan) and Annie Kay (Elisabeth Shue) are a suburban couple with a sick baby. Matthew is somewhat of a door mat. He struggles to get medicine for his sick baby. Their irreverent friend Joe (Dermot Mulroney) arrives. The guys buy a rifle to protect against looting. Annie throws it into the pool. That night, they chase a prowler out into the street where a neighbor shoots him. They decide to leave their cul-de-sac and drive to Annie's parents. On the road, they face their own darkness.From the moment it starts with the loud-mouthed black people in the movie theater, this movie keeps pushing buttons. It's annoyance at its height. It has the gun issue when anti-gun still has a constituent. Society falls apart so quickly for no reason that the movie feels completely fake. The paranoia and selfishness is dialed all the way to 11 right from the start. They leave their home for a relatively flimsy reason. The movie does find a good place to end but it's a long bumpy unrealistic road.

What would you do if there was no kind of power, electricity in your city and you needed to do stuff, solve problems away? How people, society in general would react in such chaotic situation where nothing works? "The Trigger Effect" unique power is in touching such thoughtful matter that should be deeply thought in several possibilities. Too bad director/writer David Koepp ("Jurassic Park", "Secret Window") only dwindles in a soft "Twilight Zone" scheme pretending to be serious enough to make us fully interested. It works on a minor level of entertainment, due to the lack of brainy ideas. For the most part, it's a little depressing, somewhat ridiculous and strangely annoying.It begins in a dull presentation of characters where three main characters, a couple (Kyle MacLachlan and Elisabeth Shue) and a guy (Richard T. Jones) are introduced in all sorts of confusion while gathered in a movie theater. Only in the 1990's we can think of small misunderstandings happening with people accidentally stumbling on other people causing such disturbance and heated little arguments that seems to lead towards aggression. We in the 21st Century are somewhat more aware of people, that we never know who they might be and we avoid conflict in the best possible way unless if inevitable. One small push and those characters need to curse, start a fight over pointless matters. But, they were together when the power went down in the room, then returned and by the end of the day, it will fail again, this time for a long stressful time, no answers given.The couple's problem is finding medicine for their baby who's having some health issues. Breaking point for the father is to steal the medicine of a drugstore amidst the chaos and after fighting with the pharmacist simply because the guy "didn't like him" after (again!) small discussions. Their only assistance comes from a friend (Dermot Mulroney) who makes sure they're safe due to the violence threats, riots and robbery happening in the small town after the energy disaster. No news, no information, nothing is said about the incident and the situation gets worse by the hour. Another breaking point comes when a robber gets killed after trying to steal things from the couple's house, starting some deep ethical questions in our heads.The movie's major weakness is in having a weak character as the figure we're supposed to root for. It's not a case of bad acting since Kyle is quite good in it; the problem is that it was too annoying, and far exaggerated all the time he had to take some different action than he used to take. Doesn't convince. Also, all the trouble presented by Koepp that society would rise into pandemonium simply because they're stuck without power was far too one-sided, simplistic. He only touched the surface of the problem and that's it. And when he creates the problem it isn't all that interesting to see, in fact it's too damn unbelievable. The whole road situation and how they deal with Michael Rooker character were ridiculous, almost killed the movie. And his character should've been presented earlier in the movie and we should have the right to know his motivations for doing all what he does, menacing people. But no, he's just there to surprise us with what can be surprising since he always plays the same role of menacing tough guy.If we don't get stuck with the negative aspects of "The Trigger Effect" we can enjoy it because of the proposition given and the actors working on it. Those who hated the movie for its acting or lack of a good story are a little wrong about it. Fine, it's not the best work of many of the stars present in here but it's not that bad. Hands down as best acting to Bill Smitrovich playing MacLachlan's friendly and helpful neighbor. He's a great character actor you recognize for countless films, never knows the name but here he makes his presence quite notable, specially after the robbery incident. Best character of the movie, it's because of him the film gets more gripping and more questionable when it comes to judge people's actions amidst such strange turmoil of events.Not the best or the worst, it's right in the middle. A little mediocre but positively watchable specially on a night time. 6/10

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!

This movie had potential, with themes of paranoia, lust, and panic intertwined...but the characters are plain stupid plus, there is no development of any of them. Elizabeth Shue's character tells Kyle Mc'Laughin that she has a "checkered past" and "you knew about my past when you married me", the viewer has no idea what she is talking about. Maybe she's the same character in the movie she was in before "Leaving Las Vegas" (no way). Plus, who's the friend who just shows up at the door while Kyle and Elizabeth are about to have sex? A family friend? A cousin? The plot has way too many holes and by the end, I could care less about any of the characters in the movie.Poorly done.