Maggie

The film "Maggie" is the antithesis of two things, the first is the Zombie genre and the second is a typical Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

A deadly epidemic turning people into Zombies is plaguing the world but that's not the point of this story. Abigail Breslin plays Maggie, a teenager bitten by an infected person while she's wandering the streets of a city. Schwarzenegger is her father Wade who has been searching for her since she left the family farm. When he finds her in a hospital he takes her home after strings are pulled by their family doctor. Quarantine is the legal destination of the infected but Wade is determined to protect his daughter from the horror of dying among flesh eating infected strangers, ultimately put down like an animal through a painful lethal injection.

Wade and Maggie both know what the future holds, but can Wade actually kill his daughter even once she has fully turned? He sends his two younger kids by his second wife away. Maggie and her step-mother love each other but their relationship is strained and Maggie's deterioration causes a rift between Wade and his wife.

This is not an "Arnold Schwarzenegger" film. It is slow, reflective and ultimately quiet. The violence is subdued and realistic. Schwarzenegger proves that he can act. There is no over the top bravado, no superhero antics, just a rural father struggling to save his daughter from the authorities who want to quarantine her and facing the reality that he must kill her.

If you're looking for action adventure or a big budget Zombie gore fest this film is not for you but if you want to see the flipside of Schwarzenegger and the genre, check it out.