Another week, another Netflix number one movie sits at the top of the chart – thankfully knocking Kinda Pregnant from the top rung – and this one also features a star of Apple TV+ hit sci-fi, Severance, in a whole other role that's, well, actually rather familiar...
Aftermath is a Voltage Pictures production starring Dylan Sprouse as ex-Army Ranger, Eric Daniels, who, along with his little sister, gets caught up in a bridge heist gone bad – as a bomb goes off. Whilst she's the one who gets captured – as you can see from the trailer below – it's actually Dichen Lachman, who plays Doc, who is the face of interest.
That's for a number of reasons: one, Lachman plays 'Doc' in Aftermath, but is also a doctor of sorts in Severance, as the Wellness Counsellor, Ms Casey; two, she's trapped – physically, mentally, both? – in both the Netflix movie and the Apple TV+ series. I know it's all a coincidence, but it feels like an eerie connection right now. Okay, fine, so let's ignore the gun-toting scenes and pretend it's not a totally tenuous connection.
Anyway, Aftermath, which first screened in 2024, is most certainly not a brain-bending sci-fi drama – as this is an action movie through and through. Viewers aren't exactly calling it an intelligent action flick, though, with reviews generally at the very bottom of the star-rating system – and it's so early onto Netflix, that not even Rotten Tomatoes has an official rating at the time of writing.
"It’s really bad, like really bad," reads one review, followed directly below by another with very similar sentiment: "It was really, really bad. The acting was terrible and the storyline made no sense." I get the feeling Aftermath might be a Rotten Tomatoes bomb (pun intended), therefore, but that's not stopped it whizzing up the Netflix chart nonetheless.
Sometimes the best streaming services deliver complex fantasy or sci-fi shows or must-watch comedy movies. Other times it's more the case of easy-watching nonsense, such as Aftermath, but each has its rightful place. However bad you think it is, though, for Lachman the last couple of years have commenced her ascendance to stardom – so keep a lookout for her distinctive features in future Hollywood hits, no doubt.
