The Peacemaker

A distraught Bosnian piano teacher named Dusan Gavric (Marcel Iures), whose wife and daughter had been shot down before his eyes by Bosnian Muslim snipers in war-divided Sarajevo, intends to ignite a stolen nuclear bomb around the U.N. building in New York in revenge for that atrocity…

Nuclear weapons specialist Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) and US Special Forces Colonel Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) try to stop the psycho...

Clooney, convinced that United States educated half the world's terrorists, plays a talented soldier who takes great liberties to get what he wants including heavy bribes and savage beatings… With that cool, suave and dashing look that makes women swoon, Clooney demonstrates great sense of humor with his performance, and looks pleasantly cold as hell during high action sequences… His unexpected reactions get on Kidman's nerves so easily…

Kidman looks lovely as the anguished scientist who wants to save the world, struggling tightly against her self-doubt …

Mimi Leder definitely proves that she's a commanding presence behind the camera… She shows how to move more effectively the camera creating tension throughout the hijacking of the warheads, Vienna's exciting car chase, the flight of the three US Air Force helicopters ordered to return to Turkish airspace, the truckload of the bad guys hanging over a cliff, and the tracking of the missing warhead on Manhattan's crowded streets…

The music is great... It follows the action well and elevates the dramatic suspense throughout the show...

Let's be honest first of all. Did anybody think the first movie out of the gate from a studio owned by David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg be an artsy-fartsy film? For what it is, this is pretty good. Director Mimi Leder does a good job keeping everything going (she was less successful with her follow-up, DEEP IMPACT), and I was involved the whole way through. I like George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, but I will admit they don't get a whole lot to do here. Like the similar MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, there's not a whole lot of character development for the heroes, so the film depends on whether or not you like the stars, and fortunately, I do.

The one distinguishing factor of the movie is the villain, played by Marcel Iures. While the one who steals the missiles is your standard action villain, there's a gravity and sadness Iures brings that's unexpected in a film like this. This is no sneering DIE HARD rip-off, but a guy who takes an action because he feels it's the only choice he has, and the film at least brings forth the notion that if that's how he feels, we the Western powers are somewhat culpable.

This is an action packed apocalyptic thriller from director Mimi Leder. A renegade Russian diverts nuclear warheads, scheduled for dismantling, into the hands of a Bosnian diplomat still blaming the West for the death of his wife and daughter. A well planned train wreck is used to cover up the diabolical theft of the weapons. A race ensues to find one last missing nuke. A crack special forces Colonel(George Clooney)and a U.S. nuke expert(Nicole Kidman)track down the lone missing warhead targeted for the United Nations.

A very impressive opening showing the weapon laden train winding through southern mountains of the former Soviet Union. Plenty of action and violence. The cock-sure Clooney does his own stunts and incorporates his own brand of humor. You can't help but like him in this role. Miss Kidman is not only beautiful, but appears smart as a whip. There seems to be a very good working chemistry between the two. This breathless thriller also stars: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Marcel Lures, Alexander Strobele and Michael Boatman.

When nuclear warheads get stolen during decommissioning in Russia, American military agents Thomas Devoe and Julia Kelly start to try and track their movements before they get into the wrong hands. Julia's intelligence background and Thomas' more direct approach don't gel too well, but they must recover the weapons before they are used in a terrorist strike against the US.

This starts well – with the detonation of a nuke in rural Russia, and indeed it goes on quite well from there. The story is the basic 'terrorist with stolen nuke' story but it has sufficient ability to rise above the norm to be quite enjoyable. The odd-couple of Devoe and Kelly isn't made too much of and it avoids that pitfall. The action scenes are handled well and, though lacking in flair, they do contain plenty of tension and excitement.

The cast really help – in particular Clooney. Clooney takes what could have been just a one dimensional tough military role and adds layers to it. His violence is just beneath the surface and it shows in his face and eyes. At times he does what is expected of him – but for the most he lifts the role and the film. Kidman also does well – at times she is a screaming side-kick, but she also has a bit of depth there too. The support cast never really get beyond ethnic stereotype – only Armin Mueller-Stahl has a good role. There are some interesting roles given to now famous people – Boatman (Carter in Spin City) and, to complete the ER coonnection between star and director, Goran Visnijc in a tiny role.

Overall this is a standard story. But a top-class Clooney and plenty of good, tense action scenes make this much better than the average stolen bomb flick.

A US Army colonel (George Clooney) and a civilian woman (Nicole Kidman) supervising him must track down stolen Russian nuclear weapons before they are used by terrorists.

My biggest problem with this film is that it seemed to me to be miscast. George Clooney is pretty good, and he plays the smarmy role he is great at doing (the modern day Cary Grant). Nicole Kidman seems off, though. The role never seems to fit her, and there never seems to be a clear understanding of who she is: bumbling, nervous librarian? Or assertive world-class diplomat? Not surprisingly, the movie has sort of faded into obscurity, and will probably continue to do so as time goes on.