I have to say the film in itself was okay, but Jamie Bell defintely kept me watching. He did such a great job with his character that I was so convinced he was lying the entire time! Turns out the bad guy WAS telling the truth, he just happened to be a convict/sociopath as well! I wasn't expecting the ending so the movie gets points for that.
Not to start an argument, but he wasn't a sociopath. Look up what a sociopath/psychopath is, and you'll see he wasn't suffering from that mental disorder. None the less, his performance was great, I was convinced he was telling the truth at first, and then starting second guessing everything, and then at the end when he broke down and cried and started telling the real story, I was really moved and actually sorta felt sorry for him. Excellent acting by him and the other two as well.
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Sociopath isn't a mental disorder, it's a personality type. There is no cure because it's not a disorder. There are lots of people who are sociopathic but don't harm anyone, they just couldn't give a flying *beep* about anybody and have no deep feelings of compassion for others etc.
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Not to start another argument, but he wasn't telling the truth. The infection/virus was inside the cottage (in him), not outside. There wasn't an epidemic, there wasn't people dying, and there wasn't people trying to get away from the epidemic possibly coming to the island. Nonetheless, it was a good twist. I didn't see it coming. And yes, the guy did a good job acting.
Not to start another argument, but he was the GOOD guy. He did all that to save mankind of a possible pandemic.
shareI agree. He was selfless in his actions, as he tried to isolate himself away from people. It was Kate and Martin that brought him into the house. And, yes, while he did lie to the couple, I'm guessing it was to pacify them from the real horror: they were going to die.
Everyone one of his actions, gun, force, boarding, was all an effort to stop the disease from spreading and keeping Martin and Kate from doing the same.
He was a hero.
P.S. Kate, by murdering him, also probably made it next to impossible to find a cure if Jack's disease did indeed spread on the mainland. The best source of a cure is usually patient zero.
http://cmhbuck.tumblr.com/
The problem with lying to someone when you first meet them is that when you eventually tell the truth, they won't believe you. Okay so let's accept the truth that he had a disease given to him by the army. If he wanted to protect the world from it, the first thing he would have done is turn himself in to quarantine, not run off to some island infecting countless people along the way. He infects Doug and Mrs. Doug and is therefore forced to kill them to prevent them spreading the disease. Their deaths would not have been necessary had he turned himself in at the beginning. So that makes him a murderer and far from selfless. Next Kate and Martin take him into their house while unconscious which is not his fault, in a way, except that by running around out in the world he is bound to run into some people somewhere and infect them so he still caused their infection when didn't have to, had he gone to quarantine in the first place. Next, he lies to them about what's happening in an effort to quarantine them in the house so they don't spread the disease. The problem is, his lie is so transparent that the first thing Kate and Martin will try to do is escape in order to disprove his pandemic story and in so doing they may very well start spreading the disease. If he had been honest they may not have believed him either, and they may have tried to escape, but there was at least a chance they could have contacted authorities and gotten the true story and done the right thing. As it is, by the time he finally told the truth Kate still didn't believe him because he had lied so many times, and even though she was a good person who would have done the right thing she ends up doing the wrong thing, trying to leave the island, simply because he has confused her so much. He was not a hero of any sort, nor selfless. He escaped from the one group of people that could have contained the disease and possibly cured him, probably because he didn't want to be their lab rat, and selfishly ran which caused the deaths of at least 4 people that we see in the movie, possibly more, all of which he could have prevented.
As he said in the movie, once he realized that people were dying from him, he fled the mainland. Presumably, he thought the island was deserted (as it usually is).
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Not to start another argument, but that still doesn't explain why he was threatened with jail time or a military prison in the first place, so does that make him a GOOD bad guy or a BAD good guy?
shareHow do you know there wasn't an epidemic? He said that he had killed his wife with the disease he was carrying. Who's to say the two of them didn't spread it to other people before she died and he finally left the mainland?
And from what we saw of Martin, it can take a few days before the virus presents itself (so Martin and Kate could have still been on the mainland while the virus was propogating).
The final shot of the movie (scanning from the island, east to the mainland) makes me think there was other exposure.
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I agree that this was a good flawed film. The twist at the end definitely made it worth watching. My main problem to be honest was that everything was...good. Which isn't a problem in itself but I felt that the idea could have the potential for more to happen or for there to be more characters, also the fact that she not once checked her laptop and did they not have a phone if they knew they had a dodgy CB? You are definitely right, there is without a doubt he was with more people before he got to the island.
shareWhat was checking her laptop supposed to do? You think the internet magically follows electronic devices around everywhere they go?
They stayed there once before and probably never had a problem with the CB before. The only time the CB became "dodgy" was when the people they were trying to contact (Dougie) weren't responding. Which technically wasn't dodgy, because they didn't even know how to change the frequency.
*Retreat, the title of this movie implies they were trying to get away from the rest of the world by blocking it out. You don't take cell phones on retreats and even if they had taken it, there was probably no service way out there, unless it was a satellite phone.
They stayed there once before and probably never had a problem with the CB before. The only time the CB became "dodgy" was when the people they were trying to contact (Dougie) weren't responding. Which technically wasn't dodgy, because they didn't even know how to change the frequency.