Product Details

• Actors: Joely Richardson, Scott Cohen, Justina Machado, Ann Cusack, David Ramsey
• Directors: Richard Pearce
• Writers: Ron McGee
• Producers: Dennis A. Brown, Diana Kerew, Judith Verno, Paul Carran
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: October 31, 2006
• Run Time: 83 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HRMAMM
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,385 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Action & Adventure > Disaster Films

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The long-feared avian flu has mutated into a strain that can be spread from human to human - and its spreading fast. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/25/2008 Starring: Joely Richardson Stacy Keach Run time: 84 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars DOESN'T QUITE FLY, November 11, 2006

By	Michael Butts (Martinsburg, WV USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This made for TV flick certainly makes an impact on just how devastating a pandemic of the dreaded bird flu could impact the world. That's the film's main problem--it is so heavy handed and somber that it doesn't really flesh out the storylines to make us care for the people. It's almost like a documentary; nothing really "happens."
Joely Richardson is lovely but her performance is lifeless; Scott Cohen fares a little better as the obsessed governor of Virginia; and Stacy Keach is appropriately bureaucratic. Ann Cusack takes acting honors, however, as the widow of the businessman responsible for bringing the virus into America. She evokes a lot of sympathy as a wife and mother who takes charge when things get really bad.
A dark, disturbing if ultimately uneventful movie, though.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not your usual Hollywood hype, August 29, 2007

By	Steven A. Herr (Jackson, Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been researching the avian H5N1 flu for quite a while now, and was impressed with this film's accuracy. I expected this film to be the usual Hollywood treatment where the pretty doctor comes up with the Magic Vaccine at the last minute. I was pleased to be wrong. The statistics were right on, and it gave an accurate view of how the government in its arrogance will be slow to react when the flu finally mutates so that it will be passed easily from human to human.

Scenes were well-crafted in regards to bare grocery shelves, the panic buying that ensues when deliveries ARE made, and how the garbage will pile up when the trash collectors are not available.

I was impressed with the emphasis on the need for neighbors to pull together to make it through the crisis, and how one individual can make the difference.

I do take issue where the film implies that virtually everyone who catches the flu will die. Other than the one boy (I've forgotten his name) EVERYBODY shown who contacts the flu dies.

One last thing that stood out for me was that this movie did not put a "happy face" on the situation, but ends with the grim reality that nature does not fit in a tidy little box where things are resolved in 2 hours minus commercials.

As they emphasised in the movie, it's not a matter of "if," but "when." I hope people take this film to heart and make preparations NOW, while there is still timwe to prepare. I would recommend that a good starting point would be The Bird Flu Preparedness Planner by Grattan Woodson. I have already given this book a 5-star review, and recommend it without qualification. Naturally, it is available through Amazon.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The disaster movie has become a fine art in Hollywood..., February 1, 2009

By	Roberto Frangie "Robert" (Leon, Gto. Mexico) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Films like "The Day After" and "The Towering Inferno," bring to life people's fears of death and destruction... As ABC News Correspondent Brian Rooney explains, the latest incarnation of disaster flick envisions a world where bird flu has reached the shores of America...

Twenty million dead... Bodies in the streets... Mass graves... Looting... Hoarding... Panic across America... The killer avian virus hits this country and what happens here is beyond imagination... That's according to tonight's ABC made-for-TV-movie, "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America", a purely fictional story of what might happen if bird flu arrived on these shores...

The film depicts what could happen as the virus spreads and people react to the catastrophe...