Zeros and Ones

Zeros and Others is a thriller set in a Rome under lockdown, where a pandemic has emptied the streets and left the city patrolled by masked soldiers in military vehicles. Against this backdrop, an American soldier named JJ searches for his twin brother Justin, a lone figure suspected of planning attacks, including one targeting the Vatican. Surveillance drones, cameras and phones keep the decaying city under watch by opposing groups of soldiers, terrorists and revolutionaries, and JJ moves through a murky world of fear and paranoia as a manhunt unfolds amid both bacteriological and digital threats.

Abel Ferrara directed and wrote the film, the fifteenth of the seventeen features he has made in chronological order, following Siberia in 2020 and preceding Padre Pio in 2022. Ethan Hawke plays the dual role of the twin brothers, with Cristina Chiriac, Phil Neilson, Valerio Mastandrea, Valeria Correale and Dounia Sichov in supporting parts. The production was an international effort involving Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States.

The film drew weak responses. On IMDb it holds a rating of 3.3 from around 3,400 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 4.7 from roughly 235 votes. A critics' rating of 5 out of 10 from fifty-four reviews places professional opinion noticeably above the audience scores on IMDb, though only modestly above the TMDB figure.