This is my first review for IMDb even though I've been a lurker for years but felt compelled to write one for this movie because it has gotten a bad rap on this site. I've been looking for a good movie on netflix that I haven't watched and stumbled onto this one. I love Elizabeth Shue and the lead guy from Sex and the City. The opening scene was a bit weird but makes sense once the movie gets going. I love that the film was tense from the beginning and showed how because of societal norms and niceties, we tend not to confront others when they offend us. However the niceties quickly go out the window once the power goes out. I don't think this is much of a stretch because I've seen people go crazy in the grocery store when it's hurricane season. The movie forces you to confront stereotypes and prejudices. The characters judge each other on face value because of the situation they are in. Overall the acting was good and so was the movie's pacing. I even enjoyed the ending even though some said it seemed slapped on. I just wish we could have gone deeper into the lead characters' marital woes. Overall, Good Friday night flick.

The reviews are bad. Once again, it looks like I have to defend the underdog: The Trigger Effect is a great film. The main problem with this movie in my humble opinion is the fact that people expect a thriller, but the movie plays out more as a drama. The main focus of the film is the "what if" factor. What if your power went out, and didn't come back on? What if you were at home with a sick baby, and you couldn't get the medicine for your child? What if your basic needs suddenly became a wedge between a chain of unexpected events? That's The Trigger Effect, and the characters are designed so that you don't feel as if you're watching actors and actresses, but more like people like us. They're emotions come alive, and they respond more in ways that we would respond. Each situation in the film has an outcome, which questions how we would handle it differently, or if we would have handled it the same way. Desperate times, desperate measures. Give this film a fair shake, you may be surprised.

The reason why I purchased this movie was because last year we had a power outage that lasted 2+ days for us. Some people in our area didn't have power for almost a week. I heard about the movie from a friend of mine that suggested it due to the event that we experienced. Due to us getting the movie shortly after the experience, I found it to be very entertaining and very close to what could happen to "civil" people if they were hit with such a situation for an extended period of time. It hit close to home for me and made me think about how dependent we our of good ole fashion electricity. If you want to see a movie that will give you a slice of what could happen when the power goes out then you will definitely want to see this film. Just think if your city goes without power. You then have no TV, you can't use your debit card, you have no heat or air conditioning depending on the season, no computer, no light at night, and that's just the beginning. When we had our outage we could at least get in the car and go to the mall and have lunch or whatever but if the WHOLE city goes down for a significant amount of time, then there's definitely going to be trouble on the way. And that's what this movie is basically about. Good, entertaining, and recommended for all...

Mayhem and bloodshed hang in the air as darkness is cast upon suburban Sacramento. "The Trigger Effect" could go in many commonplace directions from the initial blackout. Violence, destruction, an urban inferno of sorts. But none of that. The script avoids all the obvious traps and takes us straight to the heart of a far-from-perfect marriage, by way of the dusty California road. As the late Princess of Wales once put it: "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." All the lead characters feel like real people, not like the usual variables in a screenwriters equation: Matthew (Kyle MacLachlan, of "Blue Velvet" fame), Annie (Elizabeth Shue), Dermot Mulroney's Joe as the third one in the marriage, and Richard T. Jones as the mysterious stranger. This is a grown-up movie for grown-up people. Much like in life itself, there is no easy way out.