It's far from an original premise, owing a huge debt to movies like The Thing dozens of others than deal with mounting paranoia against colleagues in a tentative truce because they can't escape, but it's still executes the idea well.

The idea is fairly high concept; how would the relationship between Russian and American astronauts aboard the International Space Station change if their leaders down below went to war – especially if their orders were to turn on their colleagues.

It's exactly the conundrum novice astronaut Kris (Ariana DeBose) comes up against on her first mission. Flying to the ISS aboard the Soyuz with more seasoned coworker Christian (John Gallagher Jr), she's welcomed with open arms by the crew already on station, American team leader Gordon (Chris Messina) and the Russians Weronika (Masha Mashkova) Alexey (Pilou Asbæk) and their leader Nicholai (Cosa Ronin).

She settles in and starts to get to know everyone, but while watching the Earth from a viewing pod, Kira isn't sure what she sees at first – seeming to be enormous explosions spreading on the surface.

The team battens down the hatches and tries desperately to find out what's going on when damming new orders come through the American comms channel – take control of the station by any means necessary.

Gordon doesn't initially tell his teammates, struggling with how (and whether) to carry out his orders, but as they try to figure out how to handle an already fraught situation (Christian threatens to become a liability when he loses focus, out of his mind with worry for his family back home) more problems mount – not the least of which is that the station's orbit is decaying and it will catastrophically re-enter the atmosphere in 24 hours.

Unbeknown to the Americans, the Russian contingent have received the exact same order, sparkling a simmering battle of wills and wits, everyone on board knowing keeping everyone safe is their only chance for survival but all trying to play the prisoner's dilemma before it gets anyone killed.

The tension starts to explode into violence and the battle starts that not everyone will survive, the script taking us from one tense set piece to another (the antenna repair sequence is particularly effective).

It's not perfect and often feels like it's pulling its punches, but the interplay between the characters is nicely done and the film is technically quite an achievement, the zero gravity effects and sets of the space station making you believe in the setting wholeheartedly.