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Such a frustrating disappointment

Crappy film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

When a film starts with a man unintentionally killing his young family with an immediately-fatal virus within the first couple of minutes you know that A) you're in a world that bears only a passing resemblance to reality and B) you're probably going to wish you hadn't bothered watching it by the time the film is over. I started watching mostly because William Hurt is a quality actor (it's unfathomable to me why he would accept such a badly-written part in such a ludicrously told story) and also because I have a weakness for killer virus stories – even though this genre of film is rarely worth the effort. Even a relatively ambitious project like Mick Garris's TV adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand was disappointing in the extreme.Anyway, I soldiered on, and increasingly began feeling as if a creeping virus were taking over my own body. One that made me at first restless and then sleepy. After the film's prologue in golden California we are transported to the cold grey winter of Budapest, presumably because production costs are cheaper there. A lab worker (Peter Weller, virtually unrecognisable from his Robocop days) accidentally becomes infected with the virus but, like Hurt's character, is able to live for a week or so as a carrier while those he touches die within a minute of contact. Hurt shows up, looking a little geeky it has to be said, with long hair and no hairpiece, to at first lock horns with Natasha McElhone before they join forces to track down Weller (who, bizarrely, goes on the run with a large model airplane) with whom.Hurt shares an increasing affinity.Things get progressively sillier as the film blunders towards its daft climax, and we are left to (presumably) cheer two 'heroes' who gleefully infect a hardnosed government agent with the very virus they had been attempting to stop Weller from spreading. Weller and McElhone belong to that breed of second-string actors who live off the pickings those higher up the pecking order instantly dismiss, but William Hurt is clearly slumming here, and presumably only in it for the money – a fact which is almost as disappointing as this film.

"The Contaminated Man" is an efficiently but also very routinely made thriller, unoriginal and unexceptional in the extreme, right down to the ruthless "national security" agents who value the secrecy of their projects more highly than human life itself. For what is essentially a chase film, there is not enough urgency in the story. Peter Weller is remarkably convincing in a role that requires him to look much older than he really is, but he fails to gain much audience sympathy - he may be captured or he may escape, but we don't care very much one way or the other. (**1/2)

I really cant think of anything good to say about this film...not a single thing. The script is a nightmare.. the writer blurs the line between chemical and biological traits and doesnt seem to understand the difference. You'd think they would at least get a technical advisor. The performances were bad by most of the cast... although I dont really blame them.. the material really stinks. The editing was equally bad.. I'll just stop now.. its all bad 2/10

Now I had the pleasure of first viewing Contaminated Man when it premiered on TV back in December of 2000.An infectious disease expert (William Hurt) looses his family when an unknown disease enters his home and kills them. Now some years later he is now in Russia or someplace. I'm not sure where exactly, all I know is it takes place somewhere in that area. Anyway, because of budget cutbacks at an infectious disease laboratory, they are forced to lay off most of their workers. One of them, a disgruntled security guard named Joseph Muller (played Peter Weller, best known for his role as the indestructible Robocop) goes in there and demands that they give him his job back. He needs this job because he is divorced and he needs it to pay child support. So he goes in there, a fight breaks out, and some things get knocked over, dangerous things. It's soon discovered that Muller has been infected with a deadly pathogen. In fact it's so deadly, one drop of his blood will kill a person in matter of seconds. Soon word gets out and the disease expert (Hurt) is called in to investigate and he later teamed up with an American reporter. Now Muller is determined to get home to see his wife and son and will stop at nothing even if he has to infect the entire Russian population.Now as I said before this film is a lot like Falling Down. We have a disturbed person (Weller here, Michael Douglas in Falling Down) who will stop at nothing to accomplish there goal even if they have to kill a few people in the process. Next we have a hero-type person (Hurt here, Robert Duvall in Falling Down) who is both sympathetic and determined to stop the antagonist.Contaminated Man is in fact a very good film with a good story line and some very good performances.8/10