"Right at Your Door" is a post-9/11 thriller that poses the classic question from Ethics 101: What would you do if a dirty bomb went off and you were inside but your wife was outside and she might be infected with some killer spore, and the handyman from next door has come over and you need to seal the house but your wife isn't home yet, and you love her but you have to think about the handyman and you're running out of Saran wrap, and your wife shows up and she's coughing and you don't know what to do? And there's a cute little kid outside. And there are a bunch of scary-looking storm-trooper types in gas masks shining flashlights in your face. What would you do then?

Rory Cochrane, best known for his memorable turn in Richard Linklater's stoner comedy "Dazed and Confused," is both as young husband Brad, who with his wife, Lexie (the wonderful Mary McCormack), is just settling into a new house in Los Angeles when several "multiple explosion devices" are detonated downtown. "Right at Your Door" is a tick-tock of post-apocalyptic paranoia and moral ambiguity that would have made for some taut psychodrama on "The Twilight Zone." First-time director Chris Gorak, however, is no Rod Serling, and in his hands the enterprise tends toward the lurid, especially after his nifty third-act twist.

-- Ann Hornaday (August 24, 2007)

Contains pervasive profanity and disturbing violence.