40 Acres
- Ben Pivoz
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
40 Acres is an intense, violent thriller about survival. Set in a post-apocalyptic future following a civil war, where people must fend for themselves, it tells the story of a family living off the land, led by a mother determined to protect them no matter the cost. There is something terrifyingly possible about the premise. Anger leads to panic leads to chaos leads to isolation leads to desperation. All that is left is what people are willing to kill for, which is more than most think they would be capable of. However, it also follows the basic template of a lot of zombie movies, just without the undead monsters.
The movie is single-minded, with some effectively brutal action. Thematically, it is unfortunately uneven, sacrificing the character-focused first-half for a suspense-focused second-half. It is also a little long for what it has to offer. A powerful performance from Danielle Deadwyler lifts this as high as it goes, but it seems to forget its purpose along the way, stumbling toward a blood-soaked anticlimax.
The Freemans live on a farm surrounded by an electrical fence. Though they have allies on neighboring properties, matriarch Hailey keeps her family safe by keeping them on their own. When the locals start getting taken out by a gang of cannibals, the Freemans’ home is in danger and their seclusion may have to end if they are going to live to see another day.
The screenplay (cowritten by Glenn Taylor and director R.T. Thorne) throws viewers into the action with only some brief onscreen text to orient us. Thorne then introduces his main cast in a sequence where the Freemans quickly and mercilessly dispatch a group of intruders on their property. It establishes the mindset of these people, especially Hailey. She is played by Danielle Deadwyler as a woman who trusts nobody and expects her family to be as vigilant and unsympathetic as she is. Even one second of doubt directed at the wrong person can get you killed. To her, everyone outside of their farm is the wrong person. Her focus is relentless, whether it is appreciated or, more often, not.
The setup is good, adding a racially-charged wrinkle that Thorne just kind of allows his audience to notice. Hailey and her kids are black. Galen, the man she has decided to share her home with, is indigenous, as is his daughter. All the people coming for their land seem to be white. It is not exactly colonization, because these trespassers seem more interested in killing and eating whoever they find than they are in taking over anything they find. However, it does add a strong social undercurrent that Thorne doesn’t end up doing much with.
The middle portion of 40 Acres (106 minutes, without the end credits) shifts a bit to be more about Hailey’s son, Emanuel, who is resentful of his mother’s control and longs to see the world outside of their home. He makes a risky decision which moves this from intense survival drama closer to genre-specific action, with a pinch of horror. The themes get cast aside, as do a couple of plot threads, in favor of a climax and denouement that seem oddly disconnected from the first hour or so. It sort of works as a drama and it sort of works as an action movie, yet 40 Acres doesn’t fully work as both. The familiarity of the concept is nearly overcome, before it descends into a different set of clichés.
3 out of 5
Cast:
Danielle Deadwyler as Hailey Freeman
Kataem O’Connor as Emanuel
Michael Greyeyes as Galen
Milcania Diaz-Rojas as Dawn
Leenah Robinson as Raine
Jaeda LeBlanc as Danis
Haile Amare as Cookie
Directed by R.T. Thorne
Written by R.T. Thorne and Glenn Taylor
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