When I watched this it reminded me of the Joker. A dark character study based on a true story of how people deal with grief. The ending is perfect too. Arnie is really showing his range here which is something his action hero contemporaries have not tried to stretch. Not sure how much of this is based on truth and how much is fiction but it's totally believable. Truly tragic all around.

AFTERMATH is the latest Schwarzenegger movie and quite unlike anything he's done previously. This is essentially a slow-burning two-hander in which Schwarzenegger's construction worker is devastated by the loss of his family when their flight crashes. It transpires that an air traffic controller is culpable and the story subsequently charts Arnie's grief, sense of loss, and eventual need for revenge. Like MAGGIE before it, this isn't an action film at all, and it's very dark and depressing for the most part. Arnie is excellent in it, giving a performance layered with depth, but that's no surprise for those of us who have seen his cinematic merits ever since his glory days of '80s excess. Scoot McNairy also does well with a difficult and complex part, and the film successfully builds to a powerful climax.

"Aftermath" is a British/American co-production from this year (2017),so still a really new and fresh film. It runs for 95 minutes and this includes a massive deal of credits, so it isn't really a long movie by any means. The director is Emmy nominee Elliott Lester and the script is by Javier Gullón, who is mostly known for the Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle "Enemy" so far. The big star here is of course Arnold Schwarzenegger, a name that every movie-goer in the world has probably come across by now. He plays a simple family man, a construction worker who loses his wife and child because of an airplane crash. But the film is at least as much about Scoot McNairy's character, the one who accidentally caused the crash. And like the title says, this film is about the aftermath of the tragedy, namely the dealing with what happened, the dealing with guilt, but also the financial consequences like damages negotiations. This scene with Schwarzenegger's character sitting there on the table with these businessmen (especially the one who would not look at the photo) was perhaps my favorite scene of the entire film because it depicted so accurately how these people were living in different worlds and the rich guys were making sure that it stays that way.

Of course, the last 30 minutes are pretty shocking and I sure did not think things would take a turn for this much tragedy. I see the reception for this film has not been too well, so this film will probably not become the awards season vehicle for Schwarzenegger it could have become as I think he does a really good job with some truly baity material and (no offense to McNairy) everybody except Arnie just fades in this film as he is the center of it all. However, there is another really big name attached to the project, namely Darren Aronofsky who collaborated with Schwarzenegger in producing the film. As a whole, I must say I enjoyed the watch. Some of the emotional turmoil moments were working pretty well and were very touching (especially the very first film scenes with Arnold's character before the action switches to Jake afterward),but some of the film's most emotional moments also did not work out as well as I hoped they would and this includes the way the film closes, which is not as good as it starts sadly. All in all though, this was a really good tragic movie and I hope we get to see more of this from Schwarzenegger in the future. I can also see him finally become an Oscar nominee if he keeps things up like that and keeps making smart role decisions as he does here. Go watch "Aftermath"!