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Humankind has finally succeeded in laying waste to its entire planet in
yet another global war, with the extinction of almost the entire human
race coming as a bonus. "Almost" because there were those who
have read the signs of the time correctly, who have build themselves
bunkers and have seen to that they are stocked up accordingly, people like
Stan (Travis Mitchell). But now that the world's a wasteland, and he's all
on his own in his bunker, there's really not all that much to do for Stan,
so out of boredom he has started his own radio show on CB radio, playing
his favourite tunes and telling his favourite stories. He even has a
call-in line open during his show, even though he doesn't expect anyone to
actually call in, rather suspecting he's the last human alive. And then
somebody does call in, Jim (Booth Daniels), and initially Stan
couldn't be more excited. But the more Stan interacts with Jim, the more
bad vibes he gets from him, up to the point that he suspects Jim might be
a threat for his survival ... Taking a page from the Jean-Paul
Sartre quote "hell is other people", The Spinning Man
puts a very unique twist on the post-doomsday narrative, making it about
the inability of humans to live with one another, even after the
(human-caused) apocalypse, even on a small level, rather than giving in to
genre stereotypes - and this way sadly being probably much more true to
the state of the human race than most movies of its ilk. And add to that
strong performances by the two leads (voice performance only in Booth
Daniels' case), and a directorial effort that gets the most out of limited
sets and action visually, and you've got yourself just a really cool
movie.
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