The scenes that revolve around Jake and his wife Christina ( Maggie Grace) are similarly rote, but intense. The scene in general may be hackneyed-who really needs to see another angry man face an uncaring world ruled by ass-covering company men-but it does have a kernel of raw emotion thanks to Schwarzenegger. That's not always a bad thing. Schwarzenegger carries many of his scenes, like the one where Roman, facing a panel of unfeeling bureaucrats, demands that somebody apologize for the death of his family. Still, this movie does not make narrative sense beyond a point since it's essentially a series of scenes that show how consumed by grief these two characters are. Yes, "Aftermath" is inevitably about revenge, but it's also about the emotional stakes that lead characters to want to avenge their loved ones. We spend much of "Aftermath" waiting for these two characters to catch up with each other, which should give you an indication of the emotional pressure that builds throughout this film. He doesn't sleep well, is obsessed with the news, and is hounded by the press. He tries to show love to his wife and son, but that proves futile. He doesn't know Jake, but he's shown to suffer just as much as him. Roman has emotionally checked out, and that gives Schwarzenegger a lot of room to be moody and exhausted, his two main emotional registers during recent performances. He stays in his house, sees nobody, visits his family's grave, and generally stares off into the mid-distance. Schwarzenegger plays Roman, a man who works with his hands, but is woefully unable to do anything after a plane crash-perpetuated by a combination of equipment failure and negligence by well-meaning family man Jake (McNairy)-kills his wife, his daughter, and his daughter's unborn child. The film's short-comings are especially upsetting since Schwarzenegger is actually rather good in the film, and proves once again that, despite a severely limited range, he knows how to brood. But more often than not, it feels lifeless and angsty, mostly because it never has anything substantial to say about the grieving process beyond immersing viewers in trite representations of post-traumatic stress. "Aftermath" should be refreshing for its atypically slow build-up to these two characters' climactic meeting. We spend much of the film waiting for something to happen after two strangers-a construction foreman (Schwarzenegger) and an air traffic controller ( Scoot McNairy)-have their lives implicitly bound together by the collision of two commercial airliners. Unfortunately, the film's commendably atypical focus on characters, mood, and psychological realism does not make Schwarzenegger's latest necessarily good. " Aftermath," a new revenge drama starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is considerably more contemplative and downbeat than the Austrian leading man's fans might expect.
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