Aftershock: Earthquake in New York

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Aftershock: Earthquake in New York
DVD Cover
Approx. run time	170 minutes
Genre	Disaster film
Distributed by	RHI Entertainment
Written by	Chuck Scarborough (novel) Paul Eric Myers David Stevens Loren Boothby
Directed by	Mikael Salomon
Starring	Charles S. Dutton Sharon Lawrence Tom Skerritt Lisa Nicole Carson Cicely Tyson Jennifer Garner
Editing by	Christopher Rouse
Music by	Irwin Fisch
Cinematography	David R. Hardberger Jon Joffin
Country	United States Germany
Language	English
Release date	November 14, 1999

Aftershock: Earthquake in New York is a 1999 four-hour miniseries that was broadcast in the United States on CBS in two parts, with the first part aired on November 14 and the second on November 16. It was released to VHS in 2000, and on DVD in 2001. It is based on a book written by Chuck Scarborough. Starring Charles S. Dutton, Sharon Lawrence, Tom Skerritt, Lisa Nicole Carson, Cicely Tyson, and Jennifer Garner under the direction of Mikael Salomon, the miniseries follows five groups of people in the aftermath of a large earthquake hitting New York City.

It was nominated for an Emmy Award for its special effects. While critics praised the special effects and cast, they heavily panned the film for its implausible scenario, predictability, and lack of realism.

[edit] Plot

At the start of the film, several people are shown living out their daily lives on morning. Dori Thorell (Sharon Lawrence) and her 9-year-old son, Danny (Michal Suchánek), are having breakfast when husband and father, Sam Thorell, (Garwin Sanford) calls while on an out of town business trip. As they speak, he complains about Dori's loss of interest in her business after they moved from Los Angeles. Ballerina Diane Agostini (Jennifer Garner) talks to her father on the phone about her monetary situation. While they talk, a blender shakes off the counter, but she dismisses it as she ends the call and rushes off to a rehearsal session at the New York City Ballet. Evie Lincoln (Lisa Nicole Carson) a public defender and the daughter of Mayor Bruce Lincoln (Charles S. Dutton), discusses a case with her client Joshua Bingham (JR Bourne).

That evening, additional tremors cause a gas leak at Diane's apartment complex. The residents are evacuated as Fire Chief Thomas Ahearn (Tom Skerritt) and his crew arrive. Though the electricity is still on in the building, Ahearn sends them in. The building explodes, killing several men. At a party at Gracie Mansion, Evie's grandmother Emily Lincoln (Cicily Tyson) chastises her for being late and her father coerces her into agreeing to a job interview at a big law firm.

The next day, Ahearn drops his daughter, Christine, off at high school. She is annoyed that he was quoted in the paper calling the mayor "stupid," and disagrees with his quitting his job to get "revenge". At the courthouse, Joshua is found not guilty of murdering his invalid wife. Emily goes to church and is upset with a teenage boy (Ray J) there who lied to her even though she got him a job there.

Diane meets her father for lunch to get money, then leaves, catching a cab driven by Nikolai Karvoski (Fred Weller), a recent Russian immigrant who is still learning his way around the city. After declining to have lunch with Joshua, Evie leaves to take the subway. At the entrance, Joshua shows up claiming he is heading into town as well. Sam has lunch with a woman he met at the conference. He tells her that Danny walks with a slight limp because he was injured in a and car accident after a driver ran a read light. Because she was driving, Dori still blames herself.

An earthquake hits, toppling many buildings and structures, including the Statue of Liberty. Danny is in the restroom when it begins and hides between a toilet and the wall. Nikolai's cab is smashed by falling debris and they flee down the street. A gas main explodes as the sidewalk pushes up between them. Diane saves his life after he falls and catches on fire. The subway train is derailed after the tunnel collapses. Dori is hit by debris while trying to get the family dog at their home.

After the earthquake stops, Diane, accompanied by Nikolai, goes back to the restaurant and finds her father fatally wounded. He dies after telling her he is proud of her. Nikolai encourages her to take his jewelry to remember him by, before looters strip the body. In the subway car, Evie, Joshua, and three other survivors come together. They find the driver, but he is badly wounded and Joshua says they should not waste time on a dying man. He also does not want to look for other survivors, declaring them all dead, but then they hear an elderly woman calling for help and go to free her.

Chief Ahearn returns to his fire station to find the trucks buried in the debris as the building partially collapsed. The central dispatch system is down, so he has a reporter flying over the city, Jillian Parnell (Erika Eleniak-Goglin), tell him what she sees. After learning that both 1 Police Plaza and City Hall have collapsed, he asks them to come pick him up.

At the church, an injured Emily wakes up. The boy was going through her wallet, but begins searching for an exit after seeing she is alive. Despite her protests, Nikolai initially remains with Diane as she tries to find her mother, but they eventually part ways. Ahearn sees his daughter's school has also collapsed, but continues on to Central Park where a temporary camp is being set up. He finds the Mayor and they agree to ignore Ahearn's resignation and put aside their differences to help the citizens.

Dori heads to Danny's school. At the school, Danny wakes up in the bathroom and calls for help, but gets no answer. His father Sam is trying to get back to New York, but the road is blocked by the National Guard, so he goes to the shore and rents a boat. The White House calls the mayor to let him know that FEMA and Search and Rescue teams are on the way. An infirmary is set up in the park; a curfew implemented, and refrigerated trucks ordered for storing the dead. A large break in the sewer is causing hundreds of gallons of water to begin flooding into the subway system, though the survivors do not yet realize it. At the school, Danny tries to leave the bathroom and nearly falls, as the floor outside is gone.

Ahearn learns there are survivors at Grant High and goes to find his daughter. He is joined by firefighter Bruce Summerlin (Mark Rolston), whom he'd argued with over the gas incident before. They find three survivors, two boys and Christine, but she dies during an aftershock before they can pull her free. At the church, the boy is afraid Emily has died, but she wakes up again. As they talk, she learns he has no real name, just a street name, so she asks him to take the name of her late son, Clayton, who died as a baby. Shortly after, he is able to escape through a break in the ceiling and get help.

At Danny's school, Dori learns Danny is stuck on the top floor and rescue efforts are failing. Sam reaches the city and after picking up the dog, goes to Danny's school to find his wife preparing to scale the building to get him. Diane finds looters in her mother's apartment, but Nikolai arrives and finds a note saying her mother is at a friends. At the hospital, the mayor learns Emily died and thanks Clayton for trying to help her. He asks Ahearn to talk to the boy, who is despondent over not saving her.

In the subway, Joshua, Evie, and another survivor, Allen (Roger R. Cross), find a ladder out. Joshua climbs up, followed by Evie. As Allen is climbing, Joshua breaks the ladder, trying to kill him. Evie realizes Joshua did kill his wife and he attacks her. He hears someone coming and runs to another ladder to climb out, but another aftershock hits, breaking the ladder and killing him. Evie is found by repairmen and she tells them where to find the others. Dori successfully climbs the school, but the ledge is too weak to hold her weight, so Danny has to jump to her. The cable holding them breaks, but they fall safely to an inflated mat below and are reunited with Sam.

At the end of the film, the city is shown still being rebuilt a year later. Mayor Lincoln and Ahearn are now close friends, Dori and Sam are seen teaching Danny how to rock-climb, and Diane is shown to be a prima ballerina and married to Nikolai.

[edit] Production

The film is based on a novel written by New York news anchorman Chuck Scarborough.^[1] He wrote the book to note that while a quake of the size in his story is extremely unlikely in the Big Apple, it is technically not impossible and preparation should not be completely absent from local disaster plans.^{[citation needed]}

Aftershock: Earthquake in New York cost RHI Entertainment (formerly Hallmark) $20 million dollars to produce. It was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, with digital effects and models used to simulate New York City. In the film, the Statue of Liberty is toppled by the earthquake, an effect that required the special effects team to construct a 24-foot-tall fiberglass model. It took six weeks to complete the model, then on the first shoot, the model fell in the wrong direction and had to be recreated. Model trains were used to produce most of the subway-derailments. For the subway car's final tipping scene, the actors were harnessed into a life-sized subway car which was ripped to tip over when read. Actress Lisa Nicole Carson quipped that the harness was "like something you'd find in an S&M store".^[2]

[edit] Release

Aftershock: Earthquake in New York was initially aired in the United States in 1999 on CBS as a two-part, four-hour miniseries. The first part aired Sunday, November 14, and the second followed on Tuesday, November 16.^[1] It was released to VHS format by Hallmark Entertainment on October 17, 2000; and on Region 1 DVD by Lions Gate on February 20, 2001.^[3][4]

The miniseries aired in Germany as Aftershock - Das große Beben. It was released, under the title New York - Der Jüngste Tag, in a two-tape VHS format and a single disc DVD by WVG Medien in April 2001.^[5][6]

[edit] Reception

In 2000, Aftershock: Earthquake in New York was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects.^[7] Michal Suchánek was nominated for a 1999 Young Artist Award in the "Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot - Young Actor Age Ten or Under" category.^[8]

Sight & Sound's Danny Leigh felt the movie was "predictable histrionic", overly long, and "geologically improbably."^[9] Ray Richmond of Variety found the film to be "roundly insipid" and a "mope opera that follows such a well-trod crisis path that viewers can set their watches by". Though he highly praised the film's special effects as being "sharp and impactful without being at all obtrusive", and noted the film had a talented cast, he heavily panned the story for being unrealistic and lacking genuineness.^[1] The New York Times Ron Wertheimer felt the numerous subplots left the film feeling fragmented and confusing, and that it present New York in an unrealistic light, even before the earthquake hits. Noting that the film has "hints of heartfelt drama, flashes of compelling characters, [and] echoes of true connection," he felt some of the film's best moments came in its smaller scenes. He criticized Lawrence's performance, but praised Dutton and Skerrit's, particularly their interactions together, stating "their scenes provide a strong argument for letting television drama do what it does best: focus on the details of human interaction."^[10]

Tom Shales of The Washington Post gave the film a more positive review, calling it "one of the best disaster movies ever made for television" and a "fabulously entertaining ordeal". He praised the characters for being sympathetic, the actors for portraying them well, and director Salomon for his skill in building the film's suspense.^[11]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official RHI Entertainment website for Aftershock: Earthquake in New York
• Aftershock: Earthquake in New York at the Internet Movie Database
• Aftershock: Earthquake in New York at Allmovie