On Hostile Ground (2000 film)

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On Hostile Ground was a 2000 made for TV movie about a geologist who is attempting to prevent a giant set of interconnected sinkholes from devouring New Orleans. John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) is Matt Andrews, a geologist who is asked to investigate why there have been two large sinkholes affecting the city. Despite the fact that sinkholes normally only strike areas which consist of limestone, the primary material of New Orleans soil is clay. Jessica Steen plays his girlfriend Allison Beauchamp, assistant to the Mayor, who has to decide whether the problems with the sinkholes will spread far enough to require that the remainder of Mardi Gras be cancelled, which would be an economic disaster to the city.

Matt has a number of personal issues because of a disaster which happened at a mine he was advising on its operations. Although cleared of responsibility for the accident, he still blames himself, which may be causing him to be overcautious. Matt admits the problem could occur next week, or not for three hundred years. Based on the lack of real evidence of immediate danger, and because some evidence that she should have received has been destroyed by the mayor's political flack, Allison has decided not to close the festival, only to have the disaster metastasize, like a cancer devouring the city's underground.

The only answer is to obtain a binary liquid which when combined produces an aggressive foam that will fill the huge sinkhole cavern. The foam will expand to hundreds of times its size, and becomes as hard as concrete. Due to an emergency, while Matt is underground inspecting the caverns, he becomes partially trapped, and has to ask to have the foam started (which will kill him if he can't find an escape) because if they don't start the flow of the liquid immedately, the ground underneath downtown New Orleans will collapse similar to the effects of soil liquefaction and thousands to tens of thousands of people will be injured or killed. The last few minutes of the film become a race against time as Matt attempts to find an exit before the foam overwhelms him.

Coincidentally, the film points to an event that would happen five years after the movie was made. Matt points out the sinkholes, if they do fail and open up, could be as serious a disaster to the city as if its levees collapsed, an event that did happen as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

It is noted that there are a number of errors in the making of the film. Despite the fact that New Orleans is actually below sea level, the movie shows sinkholes in a cavern extending more than 60 feet underground, and bone dry, despite the fact that virtually any digging underground in the real New Orleans would result in flooded ground. IMDB.COM reports that the movie was filmed not only in New Orleans, but also in Toronto.^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ IMDB locations for the film show Toronto and New Orleans.