Leave the World Behind
A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices, and two strangers appear at their door.
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Director:
Sam Esmail
Writers:
Rumaan Alam, Sam Esmail
Cast:
Julia Roberts ... Amanda Sandford
Mahershala Ali ... G. H. Scott
Ethan Hawke ... Clay Sandford
Myha'la ... Ruth Scott
Farrah Mackenzie ... Rose Sandford
Charlie Evans ... Archie Sandford
Kevin Bacon ... Danny
Plot:
The Sanford family (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans) rents an upscale home on Long Island not far from where they live in New York City for a last-minute weekend getaway. The house is modern, massive, luxurious, and isolated.
After settling in and getting a good night's rest, they head to the beach for a day of sun and relaxation. As they chill, a small ship looms in the distance, but as the day progresses, the massive red oil tanker draws nearer and nearer to shore and it is headed straight at them! Once they realize something is horribly wrong, they run for their lives as the huge ship plunges into the shore where they had been sitting, spewing sand, seawater, chairs, and umbrellas in all directions.
Ironically, there seems to be a sudden and foreboding problem with their electronic devices - phones, tablets, computers, and televisions - which have been acting up all day. Rose (Mackenzie) desperately longs to watch the final episode of the television series 'Friends', a theme that will continue until the very end of the film.
Late that evening, they hear strange sounds outside, then there is a knock at the front door. Armed with a modern sculpture resembling a baseball bat, Clay Sandford (Hawke), opens the door to find a very well-dressed black couple (Mahershala Ali and Myha'la) claiming to be the Scott's, owners of the luxurious home they have rented.
George Scott (Mahershala Ali) claims that he and his daughter Ruth were attending an event outside New York City when they noticed a blackout in Manhattan, so they decided to head for their home in Long Island until they could find out what exactly was going on. The Sanford family matriarch (Roberts) is leery of the couple and their story, possibly based on their race, not so subtly insisting to Clay that she does not believe what the Scotts are telling them.
The Scotts ask if they can spend the night in 'their' home, offering $1,000 in cash for the Sandford's trouble until they can all fully assess the strange situation in the morning.
George eludes to a potential cyberattack the next morning as an explanation for the strange goings-on, referring to the 'I love you' hack from years before which caused havoc worldwide. Things definitely go downhill from there.
Their TV only broadcasts an Emergency Broadcast System message with no details, Amanda's phone mysteriously receives cryptic alerts from CNN mentioning a cyber attack, and when George goes over to check on neighbors, they are missing, their home in disarray, and a jetliner has crashed on the beach in front of their house, another plane quickly approaching, then crashing with devastating results. What exactly is happening?
Clay drives into town, Rose goes missing, and scores of deer show up from time to time looking extremely menacing. Archie's teeth fall out after a tick bite and a few very alarming booms with high-pitched sounds that hurt their ears and break glass, so George, Clay, and Archie go to see survivalist neighbor and friend Danny (Bacon) to see if he has any antibiotics. Danny meets them with a shotgun on his porch and tells them to leave before taking Clay's $1,000 in barter for a few antibiotic pills. Danny tells them about another neighbor's vault he helped build in the basement of their home and tells them that maybe the two families should go there.
Amanda and Ruth explore a shed in the woods while looking for Rose, but when they go outside, hundreds of deer appear looking as though they want to kill them and a huge multi-point buck arrives before they finally scare them away by screaming at the tops of their lungs. They walk to a clearing where they can see Manhattan being destroyed by bombs while fighter jets scream through the air.
The final scenes show Rose in that neighbor's home Danny told them about, gorging on candy, cereal, and tons of other junk food before going downstairs to the basement and opening the vault Danny had mentioned. The vault is very well stocked and luxurious and a computer screen displays a horrible message about the attack.
Credits roll.
Commentary:
Just before we saw the movie, which we had planned on watching because of the intriguing trailers, Fox News was talking about a racist scene in the film where Ruth is lying in bed with her father, oddly enough, and makes a comment:
" ... if the world falls apart, trust should not be doled out easily to anyone, especially white people."
Taken out of context, I can see how the backlash from such a clearly racist remark could be misconstrued, but I can now say that based on Amanda's covertly racist perceptions about the Scotts when they arrived at the front door and how black people have been treated for centuries, Ruth had a basis in reality for her own perception.
Most of the Fox News panelists I recall had not seen the movie, so their comments about the racist nature of Ruth's comment are really rather baseless. Her comment seemed clearly racist to me when I first saw the clip on Fox News, but after watching the film, I probably would not have even had a second thought about it had I not heard their commentary.
The film`s executive producers are Barack and Michelle Obama. I am not a huge Obama fan even though I voted for him back in 2008, but the film was extremely thought-provoking in light of the current world order.
Obama is a smart guy and all intelligent people should clearly be able to see how America and the world have totally gone to crap since Joe Biden became president. Without giving away too many details or the movie's plot, the events portrayed in the film have eerie similarities to what has transpired since Biden took office.
Thanks to Biden's hatred of Donald Trump, our borders have been erased and millions of illegals have been streaming into the USA, untold numbers of which come from the countries of our enemies ... Iran, China, Syria, Russia, and countless others. How many terrorists have infiltrated our country? How has this situation made our nation more secure? It is only a matter of time before we are attacked internally by some or many of those that Biden has allowed into the United States unequivocally.
The hatred and division between political extremes in the USA have only gotten worse since Biden was elected thanks to the political rhetoric by him and the rest of the far-left:
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? ... The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that.¨ - Hillary Clinton (September 2016)
The examples of these types of comments are far too numerous to mention here, but it happens on both sides of the aisle, much more rigorously from the left with Biden's calls for ¨unity¨ while describing half of the country as MAGA Republicans, racists, and much, much worse.
Members of the ¨Squad¨ and similarly socialist so-called Americans, and I use that term loosely, as well as other similar members of Congress are so much worse and anti-American than Biden that they do not deserve further attention here.
Long story short, the State of the Union in Leave the World Behind is in disarray, exactly what the Squad, socialists, communists, and the rest of our enemies are hoping for. Americans are at each other's throats and too busy hating each other to worry about what is happening outside our borders. Which brings me to my next point.
Under Trump, as much as you might despise him, life was pretty good in America. The economy was strong, gas prices were low, the USA was energy-independent for the first time in our history, we were working toward independence from foreign interests, OPEC and China to name just two, Jerusalem was finally recognized as Israel's capital, and neither Putin, China, North Korea, nor Iran were even thinking about fucking with us.
Biden has shown only weakness, incompetence, and the effects of his rapidly advancing Alzheimer's since the day he took office.
The poorly planned and disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal in August of 2021 not only went against the recommendations of his military advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it was a purely political decision based on a quickly approaching imaginary deadline, September 11th, 2021, the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.
Biden wanted a trophy, to end the Afghanistan nightmare, before the 20th anniversary, even if it meant losing tens of billions of dollars in equipment, 13 American lives, and countless other Americans and Afghani comrades left behind on their own to try to survive or escape the brutal Taliban regime, not to mention losing a very well-established base of operations in the Middle East.
Our borders have been completely porous since Biden's inauguration and America is not only spending billions of dollars processing, housing, feeding, transporting, and providing medical treatment for these criminals illegally crossing our borders, we are putting Americans at risk of another 9/11, or worse, just so Biden and democrats can garner a few million more votes in future elections. Not to mention the billions of dollars in government contracts and supplies spent on Trump's border wall that Biden canceled when entering office, American money already spent and, now, wasted to make a self-centered political statement while making the United States susceptible to future foreign attacks.
Do you think the invasion of Ukraine, the October 7th attack on the sovereignty and existence of Israel by Hamas, or the inevitable invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese is all coincidence? Think again folks, watch the movie!
The new axis of evil, Russia, China, and Iran (ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, etc., etc.), are all hellbent on the destruction of democracy, the United States of America, and all of our allies because ¨freedom¨, to them, means a complete lack of control over the masses.
Human nature is not to strive for peace, wisdom, compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama teaches, it is for power, control, and personal prosperity. Just ask Putin (whom Trump managed quite effectively) and the oligarchs, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party, 'Rocket Man' (who Trump was on the way to calming), and Iran's Supreme Leader, among dozens of others of their puppets (Cuba, Argentina, Myanmar, Brazil, and tolls of other African, Middle Eastern, South American, and Asian nations).
America and our ideals are on the brink of collapse unless we act quickly. We must unite, not fight. We must secure our borders so that no one meaning us harm can enter the USA. We must end our reliance on non-democratic foreign actors for energy, supplies, commerce, other products, and funding so that Americans have control of our economy, our safety, our prosperity, our freedom, and the future of the country most of all of us love and cherish.
Before you make any judgments or start trolling me because of my commentary, watch the film and think about the State of the World (capital letters used purposely), contemplating the road we are going down and what seems more likely - total destruction of our constitutional republic and communist rule of the United States of America or peace, independence, and prosperity ... the values most Americans aspire to and hold dear ... democrats and republicans alike.
Bottom Line:
Despite the current rhetoric and political divisions, the Obamas produced a film that is not only thought-provoking but extremely relevant to the current state of affairs in the world. The film was obviously produced well before Hamas cruelly invaded, attacked, and murdered 1,500 Jews, making it much more ominous and relevant as it applies to the current world order.
Why can't we eliminate labels and hatred, accepting all sentient beings as equals and focusing on peace, equality, mutual respect, and prosperity for everyone on the planet we share?
CombatCritic Gives Leave the World Behind 8 Bombs Out Of 10 ... The State of Our Union Gets 3 Bombs Out Of 10 ... More Bombs Are Better!
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Title: Leave the World Behind: Fantasy or Reality ... Let's Just Hope It Doesn't Come True!
