Atomalarm in San Francisco

What an opening! We don't expect this sort of thing so soon in a movie. A couple is returning from Canada to the United States after (they say) a fishing trip. I won't say what happens, but it's not what you'd expect. It turns out they have part of the missing plutonium the FBI is searching for. The rest may be headed for San Francisco, we learn after a while. And San Francisco is where some college students are protesting nuclear weapons. One group of students comes up with the idea that the best way to protest is to build a bomb, to show how easily it can be done and scare the world into getting rid of nuclear weapons. At first they don't want to make the bomb work, but they finally realize that the only way to get the point across is to build a bomb that can actually be used. Then emails are sent out using a method similar to a virus. By the time the FBI figures out where the emails originated, it's too late. Someone has stolen the bomb and intends to use it. The second half is more exciting than the first as the FBI tries to figure out where the bomb is and (hopefully) defuse it.

There's nothing spectacular about this movie. I'm sure the same sort of thing has been done better somewhere else. It's not too violent, though some people die. But there is violence. The scenes where the FBI tries to figure out what is going on seem realistic enough. What the students do is pretty unbelievable, but I guess it is possible. They sure seem to know what they are doing. One of the better acting performances came from the actress playing the physics graduate student who wanted to make a difference in the world (something it would take years to do in a paying job). Also doing well was the actor playing the lead FBI agent. The two of them together made quite a team late in the movie.

I was looking forward to a taut suspenseful two hours but the only taut thing was Katherine Heigl's sweater.

A group of university almost grads decide to build an atomic bomb without a detonator just to prove they can. Of course, there's a little problem of getting enough plutonium to make the bomb viable - enter the bad guys. Most of the group thinks the plutonium was stolen from the stock at the university but of course the school doesn't really have that much and there is a more sinister backer in the wings.

The bad guys ultimately steal the bomb and add not only a detonator but a timer and anti-tamper protection which heroine Katherine has to bypass. The acting by all was credible but the story was just too much for a two-hour TV movie and never really developed a sense of tension.

I thought the movie was well made, and I liked the the way the characters (most of them) were portrayed.