A man wakes up in a wrecked car inside a warehouse. He remembers being shot at by black clad soldiers, but has no idea who he is or how he got here.
A mysterious female voice calling itself Lazarus tells him he is a brilliant biologist who developed a cure for the plague currently ravaging the world — a disease they accidentally created in their efforts to fight a less deadly disease.
Lazarus tells him that he has to remain in the building as it is the only safe place — but she has also added electric shock barriers to all the doors and windows. Lazarus hopes he can remember his work and somehow find the vaccine he developed before the accident.
But then a young woman who claims she used to be his assistant finds her way into the facility, and the two begin trying to figure out some way to escape.
The amnesia plot is a fairly standard sort of story device, although there are hints throughout that the situation isn’t quite what it seems. Even after he recovers his memory — or at least bits of it — there are a lot of issues that remain unexplained until the end, like the team trying to locate Lazarus in the middle of the Dead Zone.
Flashburn does better at resolving most of these issues than most of the thrillers of this sort do, although I saw the ending coming a mile away. Still, it does give us a double twist at the end (although I was expecting that one, or something similar, as well. That’s the way it goes).
We are definitely not talking a great classic here, but Flashburn is a reasonably well constructed, moderately suspenseful and not a bad little thriller if you are in the mood for some light entertainment. I’m not a big fan of the type of ending here, but they handle it well, and do a better than average job of presenting it.
So don’t expect too much from it, and you should be fine. I found it to be the perfect accompaniment for wrapping Christmas presents.
And I’m sure it would go well with popcorn, too…
rivets on the poster 