By Dawn's Early Light
May. 19,1990 PGA nuclear warhead launched by Soviet insurgents protesting the waning Cold War destroys the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. The destruction sets off a race between American and Soviet politicians to prevent a nuclear holocaust. While the U.S. president feverishly works to keep the military and political machine from going into overdrive, various subordinates panic. When the president is believed to be killed in a helicopter crash, zealous advisers take over.
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Don't listen to the negative reviews
A Masterpiece!
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
I saw this twenty seven years ago on HBO. It reminded me of the two movies from 1064,"Dr.Strangelove" and "Fail Safe" coincidently one actor was in this film along with "Dr.Strangelove". It really makes you think about how much our planet and all on it rely now, because of the Cold War, on computers, machines along with codes and just how fragile systems of former Cold War enemies along with a host of other nations are and those computers and machines function properly to prevent self induced extinction.
I wanted to watch this movie based only on claims of authenticity. It just so happened that various members of its cast (Boothe, Jones, De Mornay, Torn & De Munn) made me believe it could even be one of those undiscovered gems that make you ask "why have I not seen this movie before?" Well I'll tell you why; it's LAME! Authenticity goes as far as the bomber plane Boothe and De Mornay are in control of. Apart from that, Boothe's dialogue alone would have made sure his character was grounded. Beyond that, it relies heavily on a lack of knowledge and suspension of disbelief.It may have been good enough for an audience in 1990, but even a college student would be lambasted for making the same mistakes in a short film.Tries to be serious. Silly as hell!
There are actually a lot of things to like of this movie, but unfortunately the writers didn't know where to stop. The result is a mash of sub-plots that do nothing to advance the core plot of the movie. Whether or not that core is enough to keep the movie afloat is hard to say, but there's some fine moments from both Martin Landau and James Earl Jones, offset only to a degree by Darren McGavin's hammy performance.To be honest, I think the entire bomber subplot could be removed without effecting the outcome much. Especially at the end, it seems the writers just kept adding new events to that plot line without any obvious need or plan. Reduced to its core there's maybe 1 hour of movie here, and that might have worked on its own. But as a two hour movie I think it fails.
The title of this junk drama should give notice that it's nothing more than a trite phrase turned into more Hollywood preaching.This looks like a script written in the 50s or 60s and updated to fit 1990. Or maybe just a script by one enamored with the nuclear Armageddon films of the 60s. It's still an anachronism. Director Jack Sholder has credentials when it comes to making good action films, and he does well here in the last 15-30 minutes, but it's hard to overcome the outlandish implausible plot elements that really end up sinking this.They are: Nobody of significant importance in Washington was protected in any way, even when it was knowledge several minutes ahead that a blast would hit the DC area. That's bull because there are plans in place since the 50s to do such on a moment's notice.The Sec of the Interior, chosen by the President and vetted by Congress, acts like a member of a political fringe group, and takes the advice of a nut-job Colonel over that of Admirals and Generals. Hardly even close to realistic.The military members of a bomber plane behave like they've never been in the service at all, each one following personal ideation rather than following orders. This one is particularly junk fiction, and would have not gone down as shown here, but of course it makes for melodrama.And then there's the usual Hollywood claptrap about every single person who is politically right of Hollywood being shown as a raving loony, eventually.But one thing, it's always fun to watch Rebecca De Morney get angry or in distress because when she does, she looks just like her Dad, Wally George, when he was shouting about stuff on his right-wing TV show. I'm sure she'd like the comparison, NOT!