Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

elvircorhodzic ON THE BEACH is a post-apocalyptic science fiction drama about total „annihilation" of the human race. Film was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute.After the World War III, one of the world's superpowers has activated, by mistake, a nuclear weapon. Life on the Northern Hemisphere was completely destroyed. Deadly radiation has, carried by air currents, polluted almost the entire Earth's atmosphere. Australia, as one of the last colonies of mankind, was exposed to a deadly danger. In that madness one submarine captain will not accept that his wife and children are dead. A young Australian naval lieutenant and his wife will review their relationship and marriage. An unhappy and lonely woman will try to find a true love. Time is running out...Life is the greatest miracle. However, it is easy to destroy. This film, in the absence of special effects and scenes of destruction, examines persistence, courage and emotions of a small group of people. People were resigned to their fate. They have, in the absence of hysteria, devoted all attention to love and family. The story is simple, sad and a quite unconvincing. Culprits, conflicts and possibly evil are not essential. This approach is not bad, but the holes in the story are more than obvious. The protagonists have faced depression and fears in different ways. They have accepted a fatal situation. However, emotional sparks constantly smolder.Typically, different characters were exposed to the same conditions.Gregory Peck as Commander Dwight Lionel Towers is a character who leads a quiet and touching monologue with himself. Ava Gardner as Moira Davidson is an unfortunate woman and an alcoholic who, with a smile and flirt, skilfully hides her loneliness. Fred Astaire as Julian Osborn is a scientist who, probably better than anyone, understands what is happening. His character is torn between remorse and ironic views on the rest of this life. Anthony Perkins (Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes) and Donna Anderson (Mary Holmes) are a sort of a personification of a broken family, youth and love.Together and with love against fear of an inevitable fate.

Sean Lamberger A coastal Australian population (and the US submarine coincidentally docked nearby) awaits the inevitable, weeks after the rest of the world was wiped out by a wave of nuclear-powered, mutually-assured destruction. There's an eerie sense of normalcy to the landscape, by far the film's greatest, most thought-provoking strength. The worker bees all go through their usual motions, as if a great big wall of radioactivity weren't looming off the coast, slowly creeping in to poison them all. It's enough to pull us out of the moment and consider how we might react in such a situation ourselves: when there's nothing to be done, isn't it better to ignore the inevitable, living out the rest of our days in a willfully-ignorant sense of unsteady bliss? Of course, there eventually comes a moment when such questions can't be dodged any longer, and the cast makes some bold, powerful decisions in the face of a long, grueling death by airborne toxin. Those uncomfortable choices, and the ethical quandaries that precede them, form a stiff backbone for the film. The slow, dry pacing of its superficial plot can be difficult to work through, though, and ultimately that's what keeps it from reaching its loftiest ambitions. As with many sci-fi commentaries of the era, you'll have to do a lot of reading between the lines to make the most of this one. It's smarter, but also far less accessible, than most of its modern counterparts.

LeonLouisRicci Nuclear War and the End of the World. Now there is a Depressing Thought. But there is Absolutely No Reason to make a Depressing (read detaching) Movie. The Point Can be Made with Drama and Dread, Chilling and Disturbing Images, and Thoughtful Dialog about the Why's and the Whatevers. But this is Certainly one that is Shallow and Dull with only a Modicum of Resonance and Even Less Intellect.Philosophy about Nuclear War and Humanities Propensity to Destroy is Almost Absent and in its Place We have Philosophies about Marital Infidelity and Suicide by way of a Kevorkian Escape from Pain. A Totally Misplaced Engagement. We are Dealing with Global Annihilation and the End of Human Existence, not Someone Deciding to Pull the Plug because of Cancer.There is so much to Consider in this Cold War Scenario and it is All Reduced to Soap Opera. This is one of the Most Overrated Movies of All Time that Attempts to be Meaningful about its Subject (a noble effort) and be Oh So Important. But why make it so Interpersonal. Sure Everybody has Someone They Care About and Everyone is Special. But this is a Global Scenario, not some sort of Last Backyard Barbecue of the Fifties.

AlanSKaufman My buddy did not want to watch with me my DVD of the 1959 film On the Beach, because it is a depressing end of the world drama, as absolutely no one survives a third world war, yes, humanity is extinguished.Yet in essence, upon death, the world ends for many people every day. Before you pass on you may provide for remaining friends or family, and you feel consoled by anticipating their remembrance of you. Except you simultaneously realize that eventually they will all die too, and memories will fade among their descendants.Look at world history - countless civilizations have been eliminated although monuments and numerous artifacts are extant. The movie merely speeds up this process because all remaining life soon perishes, so no one is left to take notice of these losses.Succeeding motion pictures have depicted world wide cataclysms where select individuals endure. On the Beach distinguishes itself by sparing us violent death scenes, while recognizing our mutual fate is to finally give up the ghost. Rather than loot or savage others, most people faced their own demise privately by reflecting on the meaning of one's life. This is not defeatist: when dying from an incurable disease such as radioactive poisoning, you must prepare for departure.I found myself contemplating how lead actors Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner have in real life died, so fiction became fact since their personal world actually did expire. This is the root of the sorrow I felt, and why On the Beach is paradoxically an authentic characterization, despite we the living temporarily overcoming its premise of annihilation. Sorrow is also a cause for belief in a Supreme Being who we desperately wish to save us. In the film, worshipers and non-worshipers alike fall, paralleling what occurs in reality. But if you maintain faith in an afterlife, take comfort as your being on earth concludes.On the Beach provides an invaluable commentary on our tenuous existence in this sometimes wonderful but always deadly world that sooner or later will end for all of us.