Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America (2006)

Once again the disaster-movie format is given the TV movie treatment, this time in the form of a thriller about a deadly virus spreading across the world. Think OUTBREAK, except done on a low budget and without much skill.The problem with Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America is the usual problem that television movies face: there's not one jot of originality to be found anywhere in the production. The whole look and feel of the movie is predictable, with tired actors saying their tired lines half-heartedly and with the minimum of effort. Disaster films should be all about the panic, but this one's frankly dull.As usual, there's a certain frank appeal in seeing which actors are slumming it in which production, and this one features a couple. Stacy Keach manages to come away unscathed as he's in a relatively minor supporting role, but what happened to Joely Richardson? She must have been desperate to sign up for this.Genre fans expecting the worst may find this mildly entertaining at times - there's a certain verve, inherited from E.R., to the medical scenes - but you'll need to be in a forgiving mood to really enjoy it.

Going by votes and what seems to be the general consensus in the other reviews, I expected considerably worse from this. It's by all means watchable, if I wouldn't quite classify it a "must" to view. I don't know all the facts about what this was based on, though I do recall the fear and some of what the papers said about it all. I am not the person to ask about whether or not this was a realistic depiction. I could see those into the kind of film enjoying this. The plot is interesting and develops well pretty much throughout the entire thing. The acting varies, and there are certainly no award winning performances herein, but there really aren't any moments that are downright painful to sit through on account of it, either. Pacing is adequate if not more than that. Cinematography and editing, with few exceptions(one mainly being due to the excessive use of the same sound), was a pleasant surprise. Not too simple... you can tell that it's a recent movie... but not overly stylized or anything of the sort, either. Merely a reasonably firm grip on the tricks of the technical aspects of film-making, and fairly effective use of them. There are dramatic bits that work in this. Some of it is potentially disturbing. The various reactions to the occurrences are varied and come off genuine. This does seem to lack a satisfying conclusion, however... what happens is not necessarily, by definition, bad, I'm just not sure it was what was called for here. I recommend this to fans of disaster flicks. 6/10

I watched this movie on TV last night, hoping for a realistic account of what could happen if there were an outbreak of some highly transmittable disease. I was disappointed, and I think the movie was garbage. It did not seem real to me. Some of the acting was awful, in particular that of the doctor. She was about the worst I've seen. The whole thing played like a CNN 'worst case scenario'. Even the obligatory disaster movie human relations bits didn't seem sincere. I have seen some disaster movies, in particular those weather ones, which are actually so bad they are amusing. This one is almost as bad, but it is not even amusing, it is tedious and boring.Don't bother with this one.

This movie was so dramatic and I hated it. It not only scared me, it made me want to get in a fetal position and cry. Making someone that is not truly a big deal into something everyone is going to die from caused the plot to be so unrealistic. It is good if you want to scare someone perhaps, lets kill all the birds and I guess we will all be fine? I am very scared now and may simply have to start a support group for the viewers of this movie. It was so well done that it scared almost everyone in my household, sometimes you felt it was so bazaar that it could never happened; I believe that it cannot. Therefore, I think this movie was extremely ridiculous and felt totally unnecessary making America worry about a threat that has a very little chance of occurring.