O Início do Fim

Cold War enthusiasts are like Civil War enthusiasts in that they get extremely upset when something is portrayed differently than it actually happened (or differently than they THINK it happened). When you read a negative review of this movie, that is what you are seeing. It may not be 100% factual with the timeline and all of that, but who cares? It is still an excellent movie. The acting is wonderful and the message is even better. Dwight Schultz does an amazing job with his role. The entire cast must have lost 50 lbs each to look like skinny 1940s people. If you haven't seen this film, see it. If you have and you didn't like it, please see it again and look at it with an open heart. It truly questions the moral issues of developing the bomb. It makes you think!

Fat Man And Little Boy were the code names of the two atomic bombs that were dropped in reverse order on Nagasaki and Hiroshina. How these came to be and came to be in American hands is the story of this film.

The terms by the way are the code names of two bombs fueled with plutonium and uranium. Fat Man was the plutonium bomb and that one was dropped on Nagasaki and Little Boy was the one used on Hiroshima

The film is primarily a conflict between General Leslie R. Groves of the United States Army and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who led the team of scientists who developed the bomb under Groves's direction. With two men from as widely divergent backgrounds as these were, conflict was inevitable.

Paul Newman who all his life has been a disarmament activist plays General Groves. To his credit Newman does not play a man whose views he would very little in common with as any kind of caricature. Groves is a military man first and foremost with an engineering background. He wanted a combat command as trained military professionals would naturally want in this greatest of wars. But because of his background in engineering Groves got to head the Manhattan Project which was what the effort was code named. So be it, Newman is determined to make his contribution to the war effort count.

Most of us first became acquainted with Dwight Schultz from the A-Team as H.M. Murdoch the pilot whose grip on reality is tenuous at best. If one was only acquainted with the A-Team, one might think that Schultz had a great future in comic roles.

Instead Dwight Schultz is one of the best actors in the English speaking world with an astonishing range of dramatic parts since leaving that television series. J. Robert Oppenheimer in life was a complex man who recognized the dangers and benefits of atomic energy. The challenge of the problem also intrigues him. Later on Oppenheimer got into a real bind because of his left-wing political views and associates which everyone knew walking into the Manhattan Project.

Some of the lesser roles that stand out are Bonnie Bedelia as Mrs. Oppenheimer, Natasha Richardson as Oppenheimer's Communist mistress whose affair with Oppenheimer got him in such a jackpot later on, and Laura Dern as a nurse at the Los Alamos site.

But the best is John Cusack who as Michael Merriman is a composite of some real life scientists who might accurately be labeled as the first casualties of the atomic age. His scenes with Laura Dern, especially with what happens to him, take on a real poignancy.

The debate over the bombs as the use put to them is still a matter of raging debate. Fat Man And Little Boy presents the facts and lets you decide what might have happened if an alternative use of them had been taken.

This exciting picture is a dramatization of nuclear run and follows the development of the Manhattan project in Los Alamos from first conception of the power within the atom , the 235 uranium , with the neutrons bombing into the piles of graphite which leads to nuclear reaction that produces the atomic bomb , ¨the Trinity¨ . The movie describes the power struggles and tensions between an idealist Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schulz) , the project's science leader and General Leslie Groves (Paul Newman) , the project's military commander . It was a race for the bomb because of the Nazis with the scientist Heisenberg were also making a nuclear bomb . Besides, there appears famous scientists who contributed to the atomic success with the first bomb as Leo Szilard , Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller .

The film is overlong , a little bit dull and slow-moving , though the semi-fictional accounts narrated are very interesting . Paul Newman as the military brain is excellent and Dwight Schulz (A team) as Oppenheimer , the head behind it , is magnificent . In real life , Newman was a liberal progressist and Schultz is a Republican conservative , poles opposites to the attractive roles they performed in this film . Furthermore , a distinguished rest cast , such as : John Cusack , Laura Dern , Bonnie Bedelia , John G. McGinley , Allan Corduner , Clark Gregg , James Eckhouse , Todd Field and Natasha Richardson , all of them are enjoyable . Director Roland Joffé cast some real-life scientific people in short background characters , as future Nobel Prize winner David Politzer, among others . It contains exceptional as well as colorful cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond and sensitive musical score by the master Ennio Morricone in his usual style . The motion picture was professionally directed by Roland Joffe (The mission , Killing fields ) .

Other films as ¨Fat man (this way called by bombing in Hiroshima) and Little boy¨ (so named by bombing in Nagasaki) are the following ones : ¨Day one¨ , ¨Engola Day¨ , ¨Hiroshima¨ and for TV : ¨Oppenheimer¨ with Sam Waterson and one of the best resulted to be the Canadian series titled ¨Race for the bomb¨ with Maury Chaykin as General Groves and directed by Allan Eastman . Rating : Good and worthwhile seeing.

If you know anything about the Manhattan Project, you will find "Fat Man and Little Boy" at least an interesting depiction of the events surrounding that story. The film is in all ways a very realistic portrayal of these events, and in many ways it is almost too real (such as some scenes involving radiation poisoning). Paul Newman, as usual, is brilliant in his role and always manages to come off like a real person on the screen. The supporting cast, such as John Cusack, Laura Dern, Bonnie Bedelia, and Natasha Richardson, is fairly good as well. This film is not, however, one of the best examples of turning a true story into a movie. Great films are able to take a true story and use just enough artistic license to keep its audience engaged for the entire movie. This one, however, tends to drag a bit throughout, and some scenes (such as John Cusack and Natasha Richardson's love story) could have been eliminated entirely without causing the film to lose much. Nevertheless, there are enough interesting facts and tiny humorous bits to at least keep the audience interested enough to see the entire film. It does not always entertain, but as far as great depictions go, this is very accurate, fascinating, and will leave the audience with something to think about.

*** out of ****

... especially after having viewed a far more recent and successful film covering much of the same material - Oppenheimer (2023). The difference being, of course, that Oppenheimer was actually about Robert Oppenheimer's life, thus the extra hour after the atomic bomb is developed, and this film is about the development of the bomb. Plus, this seems much more "Hollywood-ized" than Oppenheimer.

There are two male leads - Paul Newman as General Leslie Groves, the general who wants to see combat action, but because of his engineering background winds up in charge of the Manhattan Project. Then there is Dwight Schultz, the nerd from the 80s show "The A-Team", as Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who by his own admission was never good at lab work, asked to lead the team of scientists actually working on the bomb.

Since you have a lead of great gravitas in Paul Newman as Groves, they simply had to give him more to do than go about seeming bombastic, so he does more than just getting Oppenheimer in line so that he can keep the scientists in line. Instead Newman's Groves seems to be trying to convince Oppenheimer to actually think the way that Groves does, an almost seduction of his frame of mind. I'm not sure this works as Schultz's Oppenheimer is just not up to the task of holding his own against Newman's General Groves. Plus, I doubt the actual Groves had the time or the inclination for such stuff.

John C. McGinley plays...well...John C. McGinley, as he did in every role I've seen him in, as a doctor at Los Alamos, and good use is made of him with great one liners and that swagger and cheek that only McGinley could bring to a role. John Cusack plays thoughtful physicsist Michael Merriman whose diary entries narrate part of the film and whose romance with a Los Alamos nurse takes up a good part of the middle.

I'd recommend this one. It's quiet and thoughtful, probably better than its reputation.