Kathryn Bigelow takes the terrifying prospect of an unknown nucelar missle striking the US and turns it into a soapy mess that had the attendees at the the NYFF press screening bursting into laughter when the end credits popped up.
The film covers roughly the twenty five minutes from the launch until impact replayed several times from the point of view of various governmental agencies. We see it from an Alaskan missle base, missle command, the secretary of defense, the National Security adviser on duty, and ultimately the President. Each variation overlaps every other one.
The basic idea of what we are seeing is brilliant. Its a chilling look at the humans at the center of keeping us safe. It's a wake up call that reveals the illusions we hold near and dear.
Unfortunately the way that Bigelow tells the story distances us from the fear. The film comes across as a low grade made for TV movie. Why? Because the film constantly pauses to take time out to make sure we know about the lives of the characters. We aren't getting just a version of the 25 minutes, but also the back story of a large number of the characters. It might have worked had the film simply weaved the various threads into the tale as part of natural conversaions. Instead it show cases the tales of pregnant wives, sick kids, plans to buy an engagement ring, a suicide and attempts to reconcile a broken family in the final minutes of the world. Again- it isn't that the threads are here, rather it is that Bigelow pushes them front and center in an effort to manipulate our emotions and see these people as humans just like us. It crashes and burns because those bits are written on the level of bad soap opera- every side character is a cliche- sick child, pregnant wife, disaasociated daughter. Where the missle stuff is largely real, the character sequences are bullshit. If you want to know why there was laughter at the press screening it was because the fear was buried in soap suds of all the cliches. Humanizing the doomed made it less scary
That said, the film isn't bad, but it isn't scary...it's merely entertaining, which is a big fail for such an important subject.
See it on Netflix- don't waste your money to see it on a big screen
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