Apocalypse later, we're spatting

Getting up this morning, I was ready for the apocalyptic fun and philosophical dread of Chris Gorak’s “Right at Your Door,” a terrorism nightmare that started at 8:30 a.m. – actually, because nothing ever starts on time here, a little before 9. I wish I could say it was worth the wait. The idea was certainly promising. Rory Cochrane and Mary McCormack play a married couple (Lexy and Brad) in a new Los Angeles bungalow. She goes off to work. He stays home (he’s a musician). And the regular radio programming is interrupted with breaking news: A series of explosions downtown and at LAX. We see little of it and know only as much as Brad. The TV doesn’t work (the cable guy was supposed to come today), but soon enough we hear word that dirty bombs are detonated and everyone is instructed to seal themselves off, which he does with the help of the gardener (Tony Perez), who barges into the house. Eventually, the wife finds her way home but because she’s infected, she has to stay on the back porch.

If this sounds philosophically ripe and absolutely gut-wrenching, it’s not. Telling a disaster movie from the disaster’s margins is a great idea, and the movie concludes with a “Twilight Zone” sort of irony. But the dread is leavened with too much sentimentality. The thriller never thrills. And we’re provoked to second-guess everybody’s choices, especially when it comes to communicating: All Lexi and Brad seem to do is bicker. The dialogue is mostly a variation on “I’m gonna get you some help” and “[Expletive]!” But my favorite line comes after an infected co-worker of Lexi shows up and makes Brad jealous. (Is this “War of the Worlds” or “As the World Turns”?) Anyway, the co-worker offers to lead her to where she and the infected little boy she’s found can get medicine, and Lexi tells a miffed Brad she’s leaving. “We’re dying. I gotta go. I gotta take Timmy, too.” With any luck they’ll run into Lassie. She’d know what to do.