I love Sidney Lumet, I love the messages against the arms race, and Henry Fonda is a president I can get behind, but good lord, there are some ridiculous moments in this script that tanked the film for me.
On the positive side, the film shows the fallibility of men and machines at a time when the world was teetering along the edge of the nuclear abyss, and I applaud it for that. It's kind of funny when the expert on "electronic gear" comes and describes how they're "accident-prone" because "sometimes they just get tired, like people," but nevertheless, the point about machines failing and leading us into unstoppable war is something that has been riffed upon ever since. Early on the film has a visiting congressman querying why the system was designed this way - who authorized it - and he was speaking for people aghast over the military-industrial complex.
The cast is solid, led by Walter Matthau who is as fantastic as a professor who is a cold-hearted war hawk in the mold of Dick Cheney. I'm not sure the character needed to slap a woman around for trying to seduce him in the prologue, but I guess they were trying to show just how inhuman he was. Anyway, the rebuttal to his arguments, from a calm, rational general (Dan O'Herlihy) was easily one of the film's high points for me. He points out that the professor has reached a point of ideological hatred so intense that he doesn't realize he's become like his own enemy: "Even if we do survive, what are we, better than what we say they are?"
On the negative side, there are too many moments in the film that didn't feel realistic, even though I was willing to suspend disbelief over the way in which the rogue bombers head off to Moscow and then can't be recalled, despite how unlikely this seemed (even with the phone call from the wife? lol). One is the melodramatic breakdown of an American Colonel when he's asked to convey information to the Soviets to help avert the crisis, which ends with him ridiculously screaming "I'm better than you are!" as he's dragged off. Another is the loud cheering in a room of American military personnel when they see that one of their planes has been shot down - it boggles my mind that someone would think they wouldn't be grim about killing American servicemen even if there was a purpose to it. As the president (Henry Fonda) improbably sits in his bunker with only a translator (Larry Hagman) by his side, he's too calm, makes idle chatter, and wants to ensure that the translator tells him about the "feelings" he can detect in the Soviet premier, which the translator then does many times ... I guess the point being that connecting to feelings and the person on the other end of the hotline was the important thing here and in the real world, but it seemed like a clumsy artifice. The interaction with the Soviet leader is similarly contrived.
However, all of that pales in comparison to the film's biggest shortcoming, one which knocked a full point off my review score ... you're going to tell me that the president of the United States would order a nuclear bomb dropped on the city of New York? And without any discussion internally? Without any attempt to atone in some other way? I love the darkness of it and that montage of scenes in New York, but honestly, this is beyond absurd. Show me Fonda as the reasonable president who has to turn aggressive with the Soviets once Moscow is doomed, e.g. we'll do everything we can to provide restitution, but if you retaliate, we will nuke every one of your other cities - that the nuclear powder keg ready to go off at any time also has an ugly transformational power over people. Or show me something cynical, that Fonda is two-faced and in reality doesn't care about non-American casualties despite what he says to the Soviet leader. Or show me that the two sides, working together, avert the crisis and then mutually realize the insanity of the weapons they possess. But don't pretend that to solve this crisis in a snap judgment that the president, the protagonist of this story, would bomb New York. It's ludicrous.
On the positive side, the film shows the fallibility of men and machines at a time when the world was teetering along the edge of the nuclear abyss, and I applaud it for that. It's kind of funny when the expert on "electronic gear" comes and describes how they're "accident-prone" because "sometimes they just get tired, like people," but nevertheless, the point about machines failing and leading us into unstoppable war is something that has been riffed upon ever since. Early on the film has a visiting congressman querying why the system was designed this way - who authorized it - and he was speaking for people aghast over the military-industrial complex.
The cast is solid, led by Walter Matthau who is as fantastic as a professor who is a cold-hearted war hawk in the mold of Dick Cheney. I'm not sure the character needed to slap a woman around for trying to seduce him in the prologue, but I guess they were trying to show just how inhuman he was. Anyway, the rebuttal to his arguments, from a calm, rational general (Dan O'Herlihy) was easily one of the film's high points for me. He points out that the professor has reached a point of ideological hatred so intense that he doesn't realize he's become like his own enemy: "Even if we do survive, what are we, better than what we say they are?"
On the negative side, there are too many moments in the film that didn't feel realistic, even though I was willing to suspend disbelief over the way in which the rogue bombers head off to Moscow and then can't be recalled, despite how unlikely this seemed (even with the phone call from the wife? lol). One is the melodramatic breakdown of an American Colonel when he's asked to convey information to the Soviets to help avert the crisis, which ends with him ridiculously screaming "I'm better than you are!" as he's dragged off. Another is the loud cheering in a room of American military personnel when they see that one of their planes has been shot down - it boggles my mind that someone would think they wouldn't be grim about killing American servicemen even if there was a purpose to it. As the president (Henry Fonda) improbably sits in his bunker with only a translator (Larry Hagman) by his side, he's too calm, makes idle chatter, and wants to ensure that the translator tells him about the "feelings" he can detect in the Soviet premier, which the translator then does many times ... I guess the point being that connecting to feelings and the person on the other end of the hotline was the important thing here and in the real world, but it seemed like a clumsy artifice. The interaction with the Soviet leader is similarly contrived.
However, all of that pales in comparison to the film's biggest shortcoming, one which knocked a full point off my review score ... you're going to tell me that the president of the United States would order a nuclear bomb dropped on the city of New York? And without any discussion internally? Without any attempt to atone in some other way? I love the darkness of it and that montage of scenes in New York, but honestly, this is beyond absurd. Show me Fonda as the reasonable president who has to turn aggressive with the Soviets once Moscow is doomed, e.g. we'll do everything we can to provide restitution, but if you retaliate, we will nuke every one of your other cities - that the nuclear powder keg ready to go off at any time also has an ugly transformational power over people. Or show me something cynical, that Fonda is two-faced and in reality doesn't care about non-American casualties despite what he says to the Soviet leader. Or show me that the two sides, working together, avert the crisis and then mutually realize the insanity of the weapons they possess. But don't pretend that to solve this crisis in a snap judgment that the president, the protagonist of this story, would bomb New York. It's ludicrous.