Snyder blends social commentary into ‘Army of the Dead’
Zombie heist thriller contains much more beneath film’s surface
LOS ANGELES—The elevator pitch for Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead” would read something like this: “28 Days Later…” meets “Ocean’s 11.” But watching the film reveals more than a Las Vegas zombie heist thriller as layers of subtext emerge reflecting current social issues.
Building a wall to contain people, detainment camps, quarantining those suspected of carrying the zombie virus and political debate are just a few references that play a role in the story.
“I felt like to really do the genre correctly, social commentary is at its heart and at its roots,” said Snyder, who directed, co-wrote the screenplay and shot the film.
Known for his strong visual style in blockbuster movies like “300” and “Justice League,” it was a zombie flick that Snyder cut his teeth on as a director with the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”
He credits the film’s original director, George A. Romero, with using the undead to tell more than just a scary story. “Romero really took the zombie genre and made great social commentary,” Snyder said.
Romero’s 1968 cult classic “Night of the Living Dead” — and subsequent films in the series — tackled a barrage of issues including racism, nuclear war and consumerism.
In “Army of the Dead,” a wall built around Las Vegas to contain the zombie outbreak keeps that tradition alive, mirroring the debate over building a wall at the U.S. southern border.
“We were building a wall. We were creating these refugee camps,” Snyder said. “We needed to kind of use those things to hold up a mirror to ourselves.”
Yet, the wall motif did not begin as a political statement. Snyder claims it was more a function of the plot to keep the zombies in one place until the social implications emerged.
In the film, the zombies are “contained” in Las Vegas so the military can drop a low-level nuclear bomb to rid the world of the threat. A rich businessman, played by Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, offers a team of mercenaries a sizable fortune if they can retrieve $200 million in a casino vault.
German actor Matthias Schweighofer plays a safecracker alongside Omari Hardwicke. Other members of the team who venture into the zombie-infested quarantine zone include “Narcos” actor Ana de la Reguera, the multi-hyphenated Tig Notaro and Dave Bautista.
Bautista called working on the film the most fun he’d ever had on any project, and he was equally impressed with how Snyder addressed some of the issues we face as a society.
The former WWE superstar never thought much about the zombie trope, until Snyder pointed out that they are people stripped of their humanity “feeding off of other human beings.”
“They just have no humanity left. And I thought, ‘Man, that’s really terrifying.’ But also, like, ‘God, what a message. What a metaphor,’” Bautista said.
But these are not your father’s zombies. They’re faster, smarter and organized, making the mission far more dangerous than what you might see on “The Walking Dead.”
The film also stars Theo Rossi, Huma Qureshi and Nora Arnezeder. While the zombies clearly represent a segment of society devoid of humanity, it was the inclusive nature of the team that made the biggest impact for Bautista.
“If you really read into it, you’d see a bunch of people who are from all over the world of very different colours who are kind of banding together just to survive,” Bautista said.
After being released in theatres last week, “Army of the Dead” was available on Netflix on Friday.
Clocking in at two-and-a-half hours, don’t expect an alternate version known as the “Snyder cut.” This time, the filmmaker had enough time to tell the story exactly how he wanted.