I at first thought this little fantasy excursion would be a little entertaining. I was wrong.
A good cast (Roy Scheider as the president) didn't help it any. The story had every conceivable possible worst-case scenario that could take place in a terrorist nuclear disaster. And none of it could PLAUSIBLY happen!
True -- the kidnapping of the President could only be accomplished with the inside help of a traitor in the Secret Service (ala Air Force One), but everything they depicted regarding the FOOTBALL and the helplessness of our country if were to fall into enemy hands is ludicrous to the Nth degree. Seriously, not even the President can fully over-ride our missile control. The case is only used to relay orders. In this situation, our system would have completely deleted the codes and the whole thing would go nowhere. The destruction of Beijing couldn't happen -- there would not have been a missile launch because the silo-crews would have been instructed not to (communications include a hardwired system). There are just too many safe-guards to prevent such a thing from happening.
True, film's like FAIL-SAFE and STRANGELOVE gave some credibility to the concept of us losing control of THE SYSTEM. But this film goes too far and fails to suspend my concept of the unbelievable. And that makes the experience a waste of the viewer's time. This film is a failure.
A good cast (Roy Scheider as the president) didn't help it any. The story had every conceivable possible worst-case scenario that could take place in a terrorist nuclear disaster. And none of it could PLAUSIBLY happen!
True -- the kidnapping of the President could only be accomplished with the inside help of a traitor in the Secret Service (ala Air Force One), but everything they depicted regarding the FOOTBALL and the helplessness of our country if were to fall into enemy hands is ludicrous to the Nth degree. Seriously, not even the President can fully over-ride our missile control. The case is only used to relay orders. In this situation, our system would have completely deleted the codes and the whole thing would go nowhere. The destruction of Beijing couldn't happen -- there would not have been a missile launch because the silo-crews would have been instructed not to (communications include a hardwired system). There are just too many safe-guards to prevent such a thing from happening.
True, film's like FAIL-SAFE and STRANGELOVE gave some credibility to the concept of us losing control of THE SYSTEM. But this film goes too far and fails to suspend my concept of the unbelievable. And that makes the experience a waste of the viewer's time. This film is a failure.