Soon to be seen at second-run theaters around the country, "The Trigger Effect" is a bargain at no price. This film is a travesty and should be avoided. While an intriguing subject and enticing cast provide this movie with some potential, an absurd story line, poor characters, and unusually stiff acting place this movie in the bottom tier of summer thrillers.

The plot is driven by a relatively topical event: a wide-ranging and lengthy power outage. This setup could provide for insight into human dependence on technology and its necessity for the maintenance of social order. Instead, these topics are skirted and maintained only as an ephemeral setting, while emphasis is placed on the trite story of a married couple's personal problems and a recurring subplot concerning racial stereotypes.

Kyle MacLachlan ("The Hidden," "Twin Peaks") and Elisabeth Shue ("Leaving Las Vegas") provide stiff, forced performances in the roles of the married couple. Exemplary performances by both actors in previous works could never predict the awkwardness presented here. Additionally, the supporting performance by Dermot Mulroney, as the aggressive family friend and outside love interest, is ultimately one dimensional and without particular merit Only a brief appearance by Michael Rooker ("Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer"), as a crazed antagonist to the main characters, is worthy of note, but this is still less than stellar.

While the performances are not particularly well done, it is the actual plot, the development of the characters and the screenplay itself which is primarily at fault. The husband is mild and non-confrontational, while the wife is assertive and has a slightly shady past. This couple, in conjunction with the family friend, is very predictable - from the husband's transformation of personality, to the wife's attraction to the friend, to the friend's plan of escaping the terrors of a city gone mad. Each scenario of the film - acquiring medicine for a child, buying a shotgun for defense, facing the anxiety of strangers lusting after gas or electric generators - is overwrought, and the breakdown of society after only one night of powerlessness is an all too exaggerated setting for these events. And how police, fire, and ambulance services arrive so timely despite the lack of phone or radio services confounds me still.

The characters and social settings presented in this film represent a truly inferior working of Sam Peckinpah's classic "Straw Dogs." A '70s film starring Dustin Hoffman, this brilliant and disturbing movie presents a surprisingly similar primary trio of characters and social relations in a far more believable setting of social upheaval combined with superior acting and emotional impact on the viewer as well.

From the opening credits of "The Trigger Effect," where coyotes are killing and eating some small creature, the heavy-handed approach to the story is stifling; and the lack of any depth or complexity in conjunction with the absence of both drama and action makes this film a failure.

In conjunction with the family friend, these three characters mirror the relationships so effectively presented by Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" - a disturbing but brilliant film.

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