May 22, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Mackenzie Donaldson
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in the United States, the dramatic film “All the Lost Ones” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A group of left-wing, racially diverse environmentalists fight for survival during an apocalypse in which a right-wing, white-supremacist militia group has taken over the northeast part of the nation.
Culture Audience: “All the Lost Ones” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in apocalyptic movies, no matter how ridiculous the stories are.
“All the Lost Ones” is the title of this frustrating movie but could also describe the plot points that lose their way. This apocalyptic drama, which takes place during an environmental crisis, is a mess of contradictions, plot holes and hokey acting. “All the Lost Ones” is certainly not the only movie about people on opposite sides of the political spectrum who battle for survival and control during an apocalypse. The problem with “All the Lost Ones” is that the movie sets up this intriguing concept, but then constantly sidelines and undermines it with nonsensical action scenes, corny dialogue and sloppy film editing.
Directed by Mackenzie Donaldson, “All the Lost Ones” was written by Anthony Grant and Cheryl Meyer. The movie seems to have the intention of being a provocative commentary on what can happen when people are dealing with not only a climate-change apocalypse but also a civil war. However, the reasons for the sociopolitical divides are ultimately superficial gimmicks that come and go in the story. Most of “All the Lost Ones” consists of poorly staged chase scenes and a mopey pregnant woman wondering why people who are close to her keep dying.
“All the Lost Ones” takes place in an unspecified 21st century period of time in an unnamed city in United States. The movie was actually filmed in Canada, in the Ontario cities of North Bay and Mattawa. The crisis depicted in “All the Lost Ones” wants to trigger images and memories of how the COVID-19 pandemic spawned political battles over wearing masks and getting vaccines. But so much of the crisis in “All the Lost Ones” gets lost in the shuffle of distracting subplots and baffling erasures of crucial things that would be at the forefront of people’s minds if they’re trying to survive the apocalypse that’s described in the movie.
The beginning of “All the Lost Ones” shows a news montage reporting that thousands of people have died from contaminated tap water. Protestors (most of whom are left-wing liberals) who want the controversial Clean Water Bill to be passed into law have occupied the U.S. Capitol building. A right-wing militia group called the United Conservancy opposes the bill because the United Conservancy says that the Clean Water Bill violates people’s right to choose what type of water they want to drink.
The death toll rises. A caption on screen reads, “Six months later, the United Conservancy has occupied a large portion of the North Eastern Seaboard. Groups of civilians find themselves in hiding, torn between two sides of a civil war.” “All the Lost Ones” gives no explanation for how a fringe militia group was able to invade and take over the northeast part of the nation without the U.S. military still not putting up a fight. That’s not a huge issue for the movie, which doesn’t have flashbacks, but it’s the first indication that the movie’s flimsy plot brings up questions that are never answered.
“All the Lost Ones” focuses on a specific group of eight environmental protestors, who are part of a now-scattered community of “resistors.” During the United Conservancy takeover, these eight fugitives have been hiding away at a well-kept, two-story lake house. The synopsis of the movie describes this hideaway dwelling as a “cabin.” It’s not a cabin. It’s a contemporary lake house that’s large enough for eight people to live.
If these resistors are living in discomfort and extreme fear, or are trying to lay low by not calling attention to themselves, you wouldn’t know it from the first time they’re seen on screen. They are having a house party, where they’re playing music and dancing, as if they don’t have any worries. It’s a very strange way to start the movie, after viewers are told that there’s a civil war that has led to a rogue military invasion, there’s a pandemic from contaminated water, and the death toll is rising.
These are the eight people in this group of resistors:
- Nia (played by Jasmine Mathews), the moody chief protagonist who is conflicted about being a fugitive in hiding, finds out during the story that she is pregnant.
- Ethan (played by Douglas Smith), Nia’s sensitive boyfriend, is more certain than Nia that he wants to settle down and get married.
- Penny (played by Vinessa Antoine), Nia’s practical-minded older sister, is a medical doctor who used to work as a radiologist before the apocalypse happened.
- Mikael Allen (played by Steven Ogg) wants to be the “alpha male” of the group to make leadership decisions.
- Raymond Allen (played by “All the Lost Ones” co-writer Grant), nicknamed Ray, is Mikael’s easygoing cousin.
- Nancy Allen (played by Kim Roberts) is Raymond’s nurturing mother and Mikael’s aunt.
- Dawn (played by Sheila McCarthy) has a calm personality and is good at planning.
- Jacob (played by Matthew Finlan) is Dawn’s outgoing 18-year-old son.
“All the Lost Ones” has such underdeveloped characters, the movie never reveals what anyone in this group (except for Nia) did for a living before the apocalypse. This background information wouldn’t have to be told in flashbacks. It could just be briefly mentioned and would go a long way in explaining who in this group has any particular skills or job experience that could be helpful to their survival.
During the house party, everyone seems to be having a great time. Mikael even gives a drinking toast to say that the party is to celebrate their “six-month anniversary.” But viewers might be wondering, “What’s there to celebrate about going into hiding from an extremist militia group?”
Not everyone at the party remains in a festive mood. Nia goes into the bathroom to vomit. And when a woman of child-bearing age vomits in a movie, it’s usually because she’s intoxicated or pregnant. Nia is not intoxicated. Penny notices that Nia isn’t feeling well, but Nia denies that she’s having any health issues.
During this party, observant viewers will notice that all of the partygoers are drinking out of open plastic cups. Each cup is taped with a piece of paper that has the name of the person who’s holding the cup. What is the purpose of having their plastic cups labeled? Don’t expect the movie to answer that question.
This environmental crisis is about contaminated tap water, not keeping track of who is using what cup, as if they’re afraid of being drugged. Labeling the cups with individual names is also a pointless tactic because an open plastic cup isn’t exactly secure if it’s set down somewhere and could easily be contaminated if someone wanted to contaminate what’s in the cup. It’s yet another example of the movie’s disconnect from logic.
And this is where the logic continues to fall off the rails: For unexplained reasons, during this party, Nia decides now would be a good time to strip down to her underwear and swim in the lake. If you’re in the middle of a pandemic where people are dying from contaminated tap water, the last thing you should want to do is jump in water that is the source of tap water, such as lakes, rivers or reservoirs.
But time and time again, there are scenes in “All the Lost Ones” where people jump in unfiltered and unsanitary bodies of water, with no mention or concern about the water contamination crisis. And keep in mind, these are the same “resistors” who believe that the Clean Water Bill should’ve been passed into law. You’d never know it from the hypocritical and counterproductive ways in which they are acting.
Nia’s impromptu swim is interrupted by the horror of seeing a dead young man in the lake. The movie doesn’t give a clear look at the man, but he looks like he has a bullet hole in the middle of his head. Nia is understandably frightened as she rushes out of the lake. Other people at the party see the floating corpse too.
“Did you see his eyes?” an alarmed Nia asks Penny. It turns out that this dead man’s eyes have been removed. Don’t expect an explanation for that either. The dead man is never seen or mentioned again. This is the movie’s clumsy way of showing that in this apocalyptic world, you could get murdered by gun violence and could end up a corpse floating in a lake without anyone caring to find out who you are because they’re too busy celebrating that they’ve spent six months successfully hiding from the extremist militia group that has taken over the region.
All of this means that it’s only a matter of time before “All the Lost Ones” devolves into a series of chase scenes with shootouts. The resistors are armed with mostly rifles and shotguns, but there is no mention of how they are able to refill the supply of ammunition that they use. There are some almost-laughable scenes where some of the resistors waste their ammunition on lousy-aim gun shots.
Before the shootouts and chase scenes happen, “All the Lost Ones” has some awkward and poorly written scenes that show a few of the romantic entanglements in this group of resistors. During the party, there’s a weirdly toned scene of Jacob and Penny flirting with each other and being touchy-feely, as if they’re sexually attracted to each other. Penny is old enough to be the mother of barely legal Jacob, so this scene looks out-of-place and a little creepy.
Why is Penny acting like she wants teenage Jacob to be her next boyfriend? Don’t expect the movie to answer that question either. There is no personal background or context for the main characters’ personal relationships, although the movie eventually shows who and where Jacob’s father is.
Meanwhile, “All the Lost Ones” has some dull scenes of Nia being pouty with Ethan because she openly expresses doubts about her decision to join Ethan in hiding. Nia tells anyone who listens that she feels guilty and helpless for hiding out when she believes she has an obligation to be fighting in the civil war that’s currently raging. Based on Nia’s inept fighting skills and bad decisions in protecting people around her, she’s better off staying in hiding.
To be clear: “All the Lost Ones” isn’t a real war movie that has massive bombings, air combat or extensive military operations. “All the Lost Ones” is a movie that looks like it’s about a bunch of progressive liberals fighting to survive in a wooded lake area while they are being hunted by a rampaging, ragtag group of white supremacist militia people. In case it isn’t clear that United Conservancy members are white supremacist racists, there’s a Nazi flag proudly displayed in one of the member’s homes.
The United Conservancy members who hunt down the resistors are led by a snarling redneck type named Conrad (played by Devon Sawa), who looks like he stepped out of a doomsday prepper recruitment video. Also part of the United Conservancy are “angry dad” Hank (played Lochlyn Munro) and his teenage son Wyatt (played by Alexander Elliot), who has better aim in his gun shooting than almost all of the adults. And lest you think that United Conservancy only has male fighters, there’s a teenage girl named Ripley (played by Stefani Kimber), who’s part of the group, although she is literally a token female.
During this pandemic where thousands of people are dying from contaminated tap water, “All the Lost Ones” doesn’t show anyone actually dying from contaminated tap water. A clever movie with this subject matter would have shown how bottled and filtered water has become a precious resource that is highly sought-after and exploited for profits. But you get none of that in “All the Lost Ones,” which spends the entire movie acting like contaminated water isn’t a life-or-death danger, even though the contaminated water was the catalyst for this apocalyptic pandemic and this civil war.
Before the violent mayhem starts, there’s a scene where Nia, Dawn and Raymond walk to an abandoned part of the city to look for food and supplies. They go inside a general store, where Nia finds a pregnancy kit. Nia takes a pregnancy test to confirm what she suspected: She’s pregnant.
Nia later tells Ethan, who seems more thrilled about the pregnancy than Nia is because Nia seems to want to be some kind of heroic social justice warrior fighting for The Cause, and motherhood might derail those plans. By the way, Mathews and Smith aren’t very believable as a couple in love. And so, the movie fails at the one romance featured in the story.
There are some rats scurrying around this abandoned store. Raymond hands a mouse trap to Nia and tells her to set the trap because they need rats for their group’s next meal. Wait a minute: These are the same people who just a day or two before were partying like they didn’t have any big worries. And now they’re supposed to be so starved for food, they have to resort to eating rats. The contradictions in this movie start to become very annoying.
The acting performances in “All the Lost Ones” become grating and are made worse by some of the insipid dialogue. There’s a scene where Nia and Penny are in the lake (there they go again, being in possibly contaminated water), as they’re trying to hide from United Conservancy gunmen. Penny has been wounded by a gunshot and questions Nia for putting her pregnancy in jeopardy by trying to hold Penny afloat in the lake. Nia quips, “My body, my choice.” Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that when you’re about to be hunted by raging militia extremists, it helps to quote slogans that you see at pro-choice rallies.
Possibly the only thing that “All the Lost Ones” gets right is composer Trevor Yuile’s music score, which is very effective at creating tension in the scenes that need it. Some of the movie’s cinematography is good, but not consistently so. Ulimately, with a weak and contradictory story, mediocre-to-bad acting, and terrible action scenes, “All the Lost Ones” is an apocalyptic movie that sinks faster than a rock in the movie’s lake.
Epic Pictures released “All the Lost Ones” in select U.S. cinemas on April 18, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on April 22, 2025.
