Outbreak - Lautlose Killer

Rewatched this, I thought it was ahead of it's time as far as realistic looks for handling a pathogen able to cause a world Pandemic. Strong cast, good plot, good movie.

When a disease in Africa is found , extreme measures are necessary to stop a rapacious epidemic , as dinky Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) of the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases is sent to discover it . When he reports back to his chef officer General Ford (Morgan Freeman) and tells him that they should put out an alert on this disease but the General that since the disease is so far away and not airborne that it can't possibly reach the U.S . However, a monkey from that part of Africa was captured by a man (Patrick Dempsey) and brought the USA and tried to sell it but when the person he tried to sell it to rejected it he released it. Col. Daniels wants to look into it but General Ford denies his request so he turns to his estranged ex-wife (Rene Russo) , who works at the Center for Disease Control or CDC to look into and they discover it's the African disease but since it kills very quickly, Col. Daniels feels that it's been contained until another outbreak and learns the virus makes the bubonic pest look like a cough . The virus expands rapidly in the air like a common cold but the Army superiors have an agenda to their own . Meanwhile Hoffman must contain the virus that's somehow made its way from Africa to the USA and the events go awry . But military intelligence (Donald Sutherland) have other plans to avoid deadly virus in which a sub-continent the size of America may be consumed and decimated .

Suspense thriller with plenty of action and intrigue about a deadly virus is spread in the air . The pictures results to be a metaphor for AIDS panic in the same way that 50s extraterrestrial films mirrored fears of Red Menace . The story shows the scientific methods by which such viral ills are identified and tracked , including touches on the ethical problems as germ warfare , elimination of infected and several others . Nice performance for all-star-cast as Hoffman , Russo , Morgan Freeman as a good general , Cuba Gooding Jr as intrepid official expert on helicopters , Kevin Spacey as helper and many others . Appears unjustly uncredited T.J Walsh as US President , Dale Dye and Lance Kerwin . Colorful and appropriate cinematography by Michael Balhaus , Clint Eastwood's usual . Stirring and adequate musical score by James Newton Howard . Good direction by Petersen who does have its thrilling moments , most of them in the first half , though the second half degenerates in a superhero movie in which Hoffman turning into an one army man -almost caricature and barely credible- against the military intelligence represented by nasty Donald Sutherland . Wolfgang Petersen has directed very good films since his beginnings in Germany with ¨The Neverending story¨ and ¨Das Boot¨ ,after that , he emigrated US where realized ¨Night of shattered crystals¨, ¨Enemy mine¨ , and the successful ¨Air Force one¨and ¨The patriot¨ , though his last film was a semi-flop , the remake ¨Poseidon¨. Rating : well worth watching , better than average .

Despite of being from 1995, then "Outbreak" is still a movie that very much holds it own and is very watchable even now in 2020. Well, especially more so now in 2020 given the Covid-19 situation. Which, incidentally, is also the reason why I opted to sit down and watch this classic one more time.

The storyline in "Outbreak" is very riveting and captivating, drawing in the audience quite fast, with a very intense and interesting storyline. This movie is essentially about a small outbreak of a new strain of virus that crosses borders and quickly turns into a very dangerous virus that runs amok and out of hand.

Aside from a very interesting storyline, then the movie definitely also benefits from having a very impressive cast ensemble, which includes the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland.

"Outbreak" is a movie that can be watched again and again, and it never ceases to be as intense and interesting as it was the first time I watched it. For this accomplishment the writers Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool really deserve a lot of praise. And also director Wolfgang Petersen did a great job with this movie.

If you haven't already seen "Outbreak" for some reason, now is the right time, especially with the pandemic situation happening in the world today.

My rating of "Outbreak" is a very solid seven out of ten stars. I can warmly recommend that you take the time to sit down and watch - or re-watch - this movie, because it is very intense and very entertaining.

This is not a movie you will watch and then think is great all the way through. It's fun enough and the topic at hand is super cool, but you need to know what you are getting into here. Firstly, the part about the pandemic itself is very good. All the virus and lab stuff is just great and makes the movie enjoyable. Seeing the researchers track down the virus is great stuff and frankly something I haven't seen in any other movie. We have slim pickings in pandemic movies and this is surely one of the top ones as they actually pretty much use US pandemic plans to create this movie. Much of what is going on is very similar to what you saw during Covid-19. Of course here it's all Hollywood so very few people are doing all the work. In real life you have thousands of people all doing small parts. Other big pandemic movies are showing us the pandemic, but then avoiding the science, research and data. Contagion for example is more about the experience itself. Here we follow the researchers doing a job and actually SOLVING the problem. Which is refreshing.

The atmosphere is also fun and relaxed with joke statements and personal connections. You don't quite see this in modern Hollywood and modern movies are more flashy and CGI focused. Here the scenes feel natural and close in modern movies scenes feel set up and overblown. This feels like a personal experience where the characters are in the center of everything. The editing gives them time to be among each other and just hang out which adds a ton of personality to this movie that we are sorely missing today. And to be fair this style of movie making wasn't a thing before the 90's either. In the 60's everything was a set and theatrical acting. And I'm sure we will return to the 90's style at some point as it's extremely personal and effective movie making where every set feels real instead of cool. The 90's style also has a silliness to it. It's not super realistic, the acting is not always on point and they do try to make it look like a movie to make it accessible for even foreign moviegoers. As a fun experience. Today hyperrealism, dark colors, and gloomy scenes and actors is more the norm. One style is not always better than the other style, it's just nice to have both.

Now, the movie frankly has a huge problem: the military. You have a great movie about a pandemic and on top of it you have a ridiculous mess about some super government plan. 20% of the movie is not great. There are some very long helicopter scenes here that belong in a B-tier TV show. We have full-blown stupid Hollywood scenes in an otherwise good movie. It's like they are plastered into a movie just to add action scenes. The whole military storyline makes zero sense and they don't even fully explain it. It's so random and stupid that it takes this from being a classic to being a silly Hollywood movie many will happily skip. In the first hour and 20 min of the movie I was having a blast. I did feel that maybe the lead didn't have too much to do, but it was still fun seeing the virus spread and seeing different people work together to contain in. Hoffman is not a good actor anyhow. Then the lead suddenly becomes a superhero and can do EVERYTHING. It just becomes a typical low-tier action movie with nonsensical plot and stupid dialogue that makes no sense. I still don't understand what the hell the military wanted or why.

So yeah, here you have 80% of a great movie with 20% bad cinema. I still think this leans to the "you can enjoy this" camp. But it's very close to tipping over to the other side. The first hour is just really fun and I don't think you should avoid it even though you will feel let down by how much they dropped the ball in some scenes. At least watch the first hour. Then you can always shut it off and go about your day.

Hoffman is a U.S. Army doctor who specializes in disease control, and is burdened with personal problems following a recent divorce. He and his research team have their work cut out for them when they're assigned to try and contain a new, terrifyingly deadly virus that's made its way from Africa and caused an unprecedented epidemic in a small U.S. coastal town. It's a race against time as they try and locate the host animal carrying the virus, as well as save the lives of the town inhabitants before his Army superiors can carry out their own agenda. Suspenseful, well-crafted thriller is not always surprising, but it is believable and acted with conviction by a dynamite cast. ***