911 was born in conspiracy, the plot by Al Quaeda to strike against the symbols of American global domination in the most dramatic way. Little wonder that before the shock could even be absorbed, conspiracy theories purporting to explain the real conspiracy were heard.
New Day, a Milwaukee-made indie movie, is a psychological thriller grounded in the paranoid fringe of the conspiracy subculture. Nathaniel Ross stars as Robert Logan. He drops his wife Alison (Debra Lopez) at the airport on Sept. 11, 2001, expecting her to return from a business trip within days. He could not have known she was boarding one of the doomed flights.
Eight years later he is living in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, and married to Rachel (Carolyn Kanter), a physician. While glancing at a stack of medical files on Rachel%uFFFDs desk, Robert recognizes the photograph of a catatonic patient. The woman could only be Alison. With ComedySportz%uFFFDs Brian Green as his best friend and sidekick, Aaron, Robert sets forth into the dizzying world of 911 conspiracies. If Alison survived, what does this say about what really happened on that day? Robert is thwarted in his search for answers by the film%uFFFDs villain, the relentless Agent Ross (R. Michael Gull).
As in most feature films made on slender budgets, some scenes could have benefited from longer rehearsals and more takes, yet on the whole the acting is convincing. What seems like an odd lack of chemistry between Robert and Alison in the early, pre-911 scenes makes sense when the story within the story is revealed. Gull, in particular, gives a great performance as the minion of a vast conspiracy, flinching at nothing to serve his hidden masters.
New Day DVDs can be purchased from www.newdaythemovie.com.
