Alerte !

Adaptation of Richard Preston's 1994 nonfiction book "The Hot Zone" stars Dustin Hoffman as Col. Daniels, a medical scientist doing research on an Ebola-like virus isolated in an African village; after Daniels is taken off the assignment and the virus invades the United States, he learns some hard truths about how our government is run. Serious material as commercial entertainment; those hoping for a more intellectual or subdued approach to this topic will be disappointed, for the film is designed as a thriller for the masses and not as a docudrama. It's well-produced and gripping, yet one wonders how seriously the filmmakers are actually taking it. Hoffman (miscast, but personable and ingratiating) leads a strong cast including Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (terrific as Hoffman's assistant). **1/2 from ****

When a deadly virus decimates an African village, the US authorities attempt to draw a line under the incident and take the line that a reoccurrence is unlikely. However, a monkey has become a carrier for the virus and has reached the US. When Jimbo Scott smuggles the monkey out to sell to a pet store, he is infected and spreads it to others. Eventually the local town of Cedar Creek becomes overrun and the US form a barricade around the town. With the politicians planning the destruction of the town to stop the virus spreading, Col Sam Daniels and his team race to find some other way of stopping it.

Whether you viewed in back in 1995 or now, where the threat of viral attack doesn't seem so unlikely, this film should be gripping on the basis of the material. At points it does have good moments but generally this generally suffers from trying to do too much and having a script that cannot control its subject. For most of the film the virus is almost a concept rather than a real threat and it talks a lot without really delivering. Even when an entire town is quarantined and dying, it all remains very calm where really it needed fear and panic to seep into every character and every scene. Sadly it doesn't do this and the film bogs itself down in personal infections, squabbling ex-partners and so on – did we need the main characters to get the virus? Wasn't it enough for an entire town to be dying and for the world to be at risk? Anyway, at the midpoint the film suddenly becomes an action movie with helicopter chases and a plot that can best be summed up as 'catch the monkey'.

Even with this section, the flaws are rife – the action bits are OK but it seems unlikely that finding a monkey somewhere in the US would be a more complicated task! This is not to say that it isn't entertaining because it just about manages to be enjoyable enough, but nowhere near the potential that this had. Part of the reason is a plot that struggles from logic gaps and a lack of intelligence and urgency. The lack of intelligence comes from the film completely ignoring the moral complexities that come with such a situation – the film ignores the fact that bad things may need to be done to stop the virus and instead just paints good guys (save the people) and bad guys (bomb the people). The lack of urgency comes from the failure to really make the virus a threat; really I needed Cedar Creek to become the US in miniature – having everyone calm didn't do it for me and I needed more than just two cars making a break for it. But then the writing generally isn't up to the task and the heavy dialogue is pretty average at best with clichéd lines and far too much 'personal' stuff between the main characters.

Even the main 'bad' guy is a fudge as it just paints everything black and white.

Another reason that this doesn't live up to its potential is the sheer numbers of faces in the film. Hoffman makes a strange action star but he does OK with what little he is given. Russo is no good at all and happily has little to do but deliver the personal 'involvement' that the film cannot manage to deliver any other way. Gooding is pretty good in a semi-action role and Spacey has some good lines before he too becomes a cheap emotional device. Sutherland gives a by the numbers performance as he has nothing to really work with, but Freeman is more interesting because he does. It's just a shame that this talented cast were not used better in this film. An aside that was interesting to me was that Dale Dye has a minor role in the film while also serving as military adviser to the film. He is an interesting man because his career has grown from adviser to being a reasonable actor to becoming a writer, producer and (recently) a 2nd unit director – clearly a motivated and talented man who it would be interesting to listen to talk sometime.

Overall the potential is there but it is unrealised. The cast are great on paper but have nothing to work with in a script that delivers average dialogue, no real characters, no moral ambiguities, no real involvement and no sense of scale or threat. It does have some pace at times and it has enough 'OK' moments to be worth watching maybe once but I was annoyed that the potential of the material alone was missed. I think the film can be summed up by the ending – one minute we have an exciting helicopter stand off and the next we have a pay-off that is so lazy and so simplistic that I was actually visibly annoyed by it. Passable entertainment if you are in an undemanding mood but it never even gets near the potential it had.

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. ***

I loved this movie when it first came out and found it just as enjoyable upon a recent re-watching. Afterwards, I noticed that it carried the same IMDB rating of 6.6 as a more recent disease-disaster movie, "Contagion", which I find perplexing.

While "Outbreak" was fast-paced and carried an engaging plot with an exciting climax, "Contagion" played out like a BBC documentary, with no real plot, no character development, and no climactic finish. Both movies had great casts, but I felt that they were largely wasted in "Contagion" since the characters were incidental to the virus and you never become invested in anyone's welfare. Neither is wholly realistic, but at least one is entertaining.

I challenge fans of the genre to watch both movies and vote to correct what seems to be a great injustice to "Outbreak", which is clearly a more entertaining movie.