Le jour d'avant

A group of survivalists hole-up in a backwoods cabin, braced for an impending nuclear attack. Meanwhile, their children are trying desperately to join them, facing car troubles along the way.

There are plenty of nuclear war films out there...put this one at the bottom of your "see list". This poorly written low-budget film strives for the same subdued bleakness that made TESTAMENT a powerful experience...the result is a dull soap opera of tawdry interpersonal dilemmas with a World War III back-story. With subject matter as serious as this, MASSIVE RETALIATION should be a rough punch in the gut...sadly, it just tickles your ass with a feather.

3.5/10 - not recommended.

Massive Retaliation is your every day, average five-star movie. The beginning starts out great, but then quickly goes downhill. Massive Retaliation is about a group of survivalists that retreat to their camp after the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Gulf of Oman. Their children were supposed to come up earlier in the day, but when they find the bunk-houses empty panic starts to set in. As urban areas in the U.S. are evacuated tension increases. The movie was made in 1984, but the styles of clothes and music looked like they were left over from the late 70's. If you're really interested in the nuclear topic you should see Massive Retaliation. But, be forewarned, there is only one nuclear event reported on a TV news program. No big nuclear explosions in this one.

When I saw this movie, I couldn't believe that any self-respecting producer would waste the money. The action is silly. The youth of the movie are portrayed as smart-mouth and not worth the saving (an outgrowth of the scriptwriter's own view of children). The cast list tells you all you need to know when you see Peter Donat, Jason Gedrick and Bob Goldthwait all in the same movie.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the portrayal of the survivalists. It is typical of Hollywood's view of people other than those in their own inner circle.

If you must see a nuclear disaster movie, this is not it. You'd be much better off seeing "Miracle Mile" with Anthony Edwards, or "On the Beach".

This is astonishingly bad. The Wikipedia says this is similar to a twilight zone episode, but I think it's like some of the first atomic bomb movies of the early 50s.

But those early movies were made when nukes were new and the ramifications of using them weren't fully thought out.

It may or may not be "so bad it's good" territory, but it might be worth watching to see several familiar faces.

The title of the movie seems rather sophomoric and hardly suggests the content. Pretty likely the studio or distributor or whoever were well aware it's a total turkey and slapped on a name that might generate interest.

This is no better than Testament, The Day After, or Time of The Wolf. It's just too quiet, too detached from the horror that one might expect from a film revolving around the mass-detonation of atomic weaponry. The weight of the events is turned gooey, trivial, almost into a soap-opera style drama. Try as actors might, "imagining the unimaginable" (as it's often called) leaves the viewer uneasy at worst. The reporter that traveled to Hiroshima right after the a-bomb was dropped - he was not left uneasy. He was horrified, beside himself with grief and sorrow. Those are the emotions a film on this topic should attempt to evoke. Sadly, Massive Retaliation wimps out like many before and after it. One is invariably led to wonder the reasons this abnormal structure has proved the prevalent one. Why is it, that whenever anyone wants to make a nuclear war film, and get it taken seriously, it's turned into a character study? I can count on one hand the no-holds-barred, "thermonuclear war is not pretty" type of films that have been widely distributed across America. I guess when "The China Syndrome" predicted 3 Mile Island and changed millions of minds regarding nuclear power, the secret was out: to keep making missiles and subs and bombers, don't put the "real deal" in front of the people. Make them think that it will be a mild, slow, thoughtful and sad cancer-type death. Showing the real thing, the eyeball exploding, blood boiling out every hole, organs exploding, teeth melting, ocean boiling, mountain-leveling finality of all life on earth for thousands of years thing would just upset everyone too much. Afraid, but not rioting out of sheer panic - that's the optimum mood. Trauma is not conducive to apathetic behavior, and that's what the death-merchants need from the civilian sector. Hence, the oddly maudlin nature of our mainstream nuclear Armageddon movies. What a sorry excuse for consciousness-raising fare, this tripe known as Massive Retalitation.