After release, sarin will spread into the environment rapidly and present an immediate but short-lived threat. It is a colorless and odorless liquid at room temperature, but evaporates rapidly when heated. A single drop the size of the head of a pin is enough to kill an adult human rapidly. Sarin (also known as GB) is a volatile but toxic nerve agent. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon stated that this was the “most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in 1988.” In September 2013, the UN confirmed that a chemical weapons attack involving specially designed rockets that spread sarin over rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital took place the month before. While it is possible to recover from exposure, tiny amounts of the agent can be lethal. Death is caused by asphyxiation or heart failure. With the enzyme blocked, molecules constantly stimulate the muscles. As with other nerve agents, VX works by affecting the enzyme (acetylcholinesterase) that acts as the body’s ‘off switch’ for glands and muscles. They include salivation, constriction of the pupils and tightness in the chest. Symptoms can appear only seconds after exposure. “VX vapor is heavier than air,” which means that when released, “it will sink to low-lying areas and create a greater exposure hazard there.” Such characteristics make VX potentially useful as an area-denial weapon. Under regular weather conditions, VX can persist for days on surfaces, while it can last for months in very cold conditions. Trust me this time. "Cold Blood" isn’t so much hysterically awful as simply lifeless.Developed in the UK in the early 1950s, VX is particularly potent because it’s a persistent agent: Once it’s released into the atmosphere it’s slow to evaporate. Several people told me that my pan of " Gotti" around a year ago actually made them want to see it just to experience the awful for themselves and then they all regretted it. If you’re wondering if this means that “Cold Blood” is so bad that it veers into B-movie entertainment, I’m sorry to report that this is not the case. (It’s not dubbed.) One scene in particular involving a woman with dementia is downright Wiseau-esque in the quality of its writing. There are exchanges of dialogue in “Cold Blood” that are so unnatural that I almost thought I was watching a dubbed film for a second. And then the actors learned their lines phonetically. It’s like someone read a bad crime novel out loud in another language into a Google Translate app. “Cold Blood” becomes an exercise in tedium, hampered not only by an almost nonexistent plot but the most awkwardly written and delivered dialogue of the year. First, there’s a twist involving Melody that’s easy to see coming from incredibly far away, but the film hinges on it being way more interesting than you’re likely to find it. It’s almost impossible to care about the answers to any of those questions. Can Melody trust Henry? Why was she really in the Rockies in the first place? And how will Kappa find his way to the snowy setting of the rest of the film? He takes her back and nurses her to health while the film cuts to a detective named Kappa ( Joe Anderson), who is trying to solve Henry’s last crime with a dedication that makes absolutely no sense. That’s how a woman named Melody ( Sarah Lind) enters his isolated world, crashing her snowmobile close enough to his cabin that he finds her injured body. Ten months since his last job, Henry resides in a cabin that’s barely even accessible by snowmobile. Both Reno and Arbogast seem to be repaying a favor, and only halfheartedly so.) (The fact that both "Leon" and "Cold Blood" share a cinematographer too in Thierry Arbogast is all the more upsetting given how this film isn't even visually competent. In other words, he’s a walking cliché of a hired killer, some of them having become a part of the thriller lexicon by people who saw “Leon” and tried to mimic its quality without ever understanding it in the first place. Half-asleep through the entire film, Reno’s Henry is one of those “serious movie hitmen” who reads The Art of War and lives in remote cabins in the middle of nowhere. Even the typically-strong actor can’t muster any strength to pretend to care about Henry, the hitman he plays here. You see, if Jean Reno didn’t star in that 1994 Luc Besson hit, he probably wouldn’t be playing a hitman for the umpteenth time a quarter-century later. I thought of one of Roger Ebert’s most famous quotes while watching “Cold Blood”: “No good film is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” I think he’d understand what I mean when I say that “Cold Blood” feels like the longest movie of the year.įrédéric Petitjean’s alleged thriller is so flat and joyless that it actually made me like “Leon” less.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |