Contagion Movie Review

Catch it, Kill it, Bin it. With the first onset of autumn sniffles and man flu being coughed up on public transport, it could be easy to ignore these three simple rules. The risk, of course, would mean you may contract a sore throat or, at worst, be bedridden for a couple of days. In Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion: It means death.  Welcome to a hypochondriac’s nightmare. Contagion starts with Gwyneth Paltrow sitting in a Tokyo bar, sipping cocktails and taking pictures on a business trip. Two days later she has a seizure in her kitchen and is rushed to hospital by her husband (played by Matt Damon) where she dies. Within hours other people from the Tokyo bar suffer the same fate. By this point they have each, unknowingly, spread the mystery virus onto others who are also doomed. The basic premise takes the flu and makes it fatal. Since Inception proved that blockbusters can have brains, there has been a recent run of smartly scripted mainstream films in cinemas. Source Code, Tinker Tail