After watching Contagion, you will never hear a sneeze the same way again. And you'll probably engage a strict regime of hand-washing before you leave the cinema as well. It's that kind of movie, the sort that gets under your skin to leave a nasty feeling. It starts with a cough. Beth (Gwyenth Paltrow) is in Hong Kong and she's not feeling very well. Before heading home to husband Mitch (Matt Damon), she meets up with a friend. Within days she's dead. So is the friend. By week's end, half the US is hacking up sputum while the military prepare mass graves. Contagion is not exactly a date movie.

Contagion is the kind of thriller that keeps you uncomfortably aware of the worst reports of recent history. Had official nightmares about SARS or Swine Flu come true, this is what they would look like. Chaos mostly as authority collapses under the weight of numbers. Trying to keep a lid on the mayhem is the head of the CDC (Laurence Fishburne) who, pre-warned, keeps his family ahead of the bugs and a conspiracy theorist (Jude Law) trying to expose governmental hypocrisy. Less fortunate is front line colleague (Kate Winslett) who catches a severe case of contagion, and while civilisation crumbles, Mitch flounders, uncertain why he is immune.

Soderbergh makes these films with one hand behind his back. It has the flash of Tony Scott, the scare of Danny Boyle, the head of Michael Winterbottom (think Crimson Tide meets A Mighty Heart by way of 28 Days Later). He has an incomparable ease with ensemble plotting (think Traffic or Oceans) and gets the very best from a rock solid cast. Yet that polish belies a hint of ennui that creates a certain narrative distance. As gritty, stylish and scary as Contagion is, and it’s all these things, it also sits slightly apart leaving me wanting more than a dose of distress. I want a damn good fright in the way Children of Men or even Jaws once did. An idea like this should do that. Which is not to say Contagion underperforms, but nor does it overwhelm.

// COLIN FRASER
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