The Divide imagines what might happen to a small group of survivors locked in the basement of a New York apartment building in the days after a nuclear apocalypse. Director Xavier Gens shows us his characters slowly descending into murderous madness, but fails to indicate what makes them tick. The film itself runs for an interminable two hours, and the title suggests the gap between an excellent idea for a movie and its shoddy execution.

Starring: Lauren German, Michael Biehn and Ivan Gonzalez

Rating: Two stars out of five

In any war, there are casualties and there are survivors, but I'm not sure if this is the divide referred to by this film's title. Another possibility might be the gap between an excellent idea for a movie and its shoddy execution.

The story imagines what might happen to a small group of survivors locked in the basement of a New York apartment building in the days after a nuclear apocalypse, and it doesn't waste any time getting them there. In the opening seconds of the film, explosions rattle the city, and a bunch of people scramble to the cellar and lock the door behind them. They are nine in number, which suggests that at least one of the writers attended Screenwriting 101 before changing his major.

Michael Biehn plays Mickey, the cigar-chomping survivalist superintendent, who tells the rest of the gang that they have to stay put until the radiation subsides. When will that be? "When I say so," he informs them gruffly. The group is terrified of fallout, although they smoke like chimneys as they discuss its carcinogenic dangers.

Also aboard is Eva, played by Lauren German, who so resembles Milla Jovovich that it's clearly just a matter of time before she starts kicking ass. Then there's Sam, her ineffectual boyfriend, played by Spaniard Ivan Gonzalez as (for reasons never explained) a Frenchman.

The rest of the refugees are a similarly unprepossessing lot. Milo Ventimiglia, Ashton Holmes and Michael Eklund are three young men, apparently just waiting for a chance to come unglued. I think two of them are half-brothers, but as it didn't seem to matter much, I lost track of which ones. Courtney B. Vance is Token Black Guy. And Rosanna Arquette is a shell-shocked mother with a little girl.

The basement in which they find themselves trapped is roomy and has its own electrical power, but it's a decorator's nightmare. Accented with rusty chains, big metal hooks and fire axes, it would be a perfect place to put on an amateur production of Saw. Mickey passes out mattresses and cans of beans, and everyone hunkers down for the (nuclear) winter.

History is rife with examples of good movies in small packages, including submarines (Das Boot), space capsules (Apollo 13) and even a lifeboat (Lifeboat). But The Divide won't be joining the list any time soon. Director Xavier Gens, whose last film was the forgettable 2007 action pastiche Hitman, shows us his characters slowly descending into murderous madness, but fails to indicate what makes them tick. Hints of backstory, in dialogue and the odd photograph, are never developed.

Worse, the one interesting aspect of life in the bunker is also its most maddeningly mysterious. Armed men in HAZMAT suits burst through the door, grab one of the nine and make their escape, but to what end? Gens isn't telling.

Finally, there is the problem of time. Granted, there are few cues as to its passing, when you're trapped in a windowless basement under the glare of electric lights, but sometimes, a line of dialogue will indicate that days have passed, with nothing noteworthy having happened in the meantime.

The film itself runs for an interminable two hours, so one is left feeling that time is both rushing past and failing to pass at all. That's another type of divide, and it isn't a great one.