Fantastic watch, will watch again, and do recommend.
This one really flew under the radar, and I almost skipped it until I saw Brittany Snow, and had I know Dave Batista was also involved, I would have sought this out.
Let me get this out of the way: the premise is a succession of the southern united states from the Union with an initial strike against a civil target. This is what "The South will rise again" means, this is what everyone flying the Confederate Battle Flag is signifying when they display the symbol of a terrorist organization.
That said, this is an amazingly shot depiction of a horrible attack on civilians. The follow camera style gives you all the feeling of "found footage" (unfortunately there is a little shaking cam in action), without all the overhead and mislead about where the camera is, someone has to hold it, and "who edited this together". It is really immersive, and the audience learns about the situation (quickly, I might add) right alongside the characters.
The story hardly wastes any time throwing us into chaos and survival. The best part is that Brittany Snow is just a college girl, smart and capable, but not combat ready and not that great of a survivalist. We get Dave Batista playing the stereotypical "Rock Role" of being former military, but instead of being a witty, smoldering pretty boy, they layered on substance to his character, and let him be gun ready.
There are good twists, not a lot of complex multi-threading (at least for a city at war), all good action, and a ton of immersive realism.
The biggest problems with this movie are the most realistic ones: in the times of a domestic war, there are going to be 4 sides: invaders, defenders, abstainers, and criminals: people that are just going to take the opportunity to do whatever and hurt whomever they want before someone kills them.
Honestly, the more I think about it, the better this movie seems. I'd probably expand the ending though, in the very least there should have been an epilogue. At it stands, the movie just sort of ends, but it is possibly by design.
