Poor William Hurt. How does one go from being nominated for the Best Actor Oscar three years in a row to toplining a below-average virus thriller called Contaminated Man?
With a mullet that makes him look like a Foghat roadie, Hurt stars as David Whitman, a hazardous materials specialist for the United Nations. He’s called to a chemicals company in Budapest (economically enough), where veteran employee Joseph Müller (a bald Peter Weller, RoboCop) has just been downsized and taken revenge by unleashing some, like, really bad chemical stuff.
Unfortunately for Müller, he’s also gotten himself exposed to the stuff and becomes … wait for it … the Contaminated Man! Basically, this means he coughs a lot and everyone he touches grows pus-filled blisters and spews skim milk within the hour. All the viewer gets is an uninvolving, sub-Outbreak-type chase where Whitman tracks Müller from one public place to another. It all culminates in the latter filling a remote-control submarine with his infected blood and threatening to taint the water supply.
Director Anthony Hickox has done fun work before in pure B-movie mode (Waxwork), but this is not another notch in that belt. No, this is drab, bleak viewing, made all the more drab and bleak by being set in the aforementioned Budapest. Both actors deserve better. The only thing great about Contaminated Man is its title. —Rod Lott