Deterrence

Usually when watching a film, you have a sense of what it's TRYING to achieve.

So cue stock footage and sound clips of previous presidents, set scene in diner cut of from contact with world. Expect mounting claustrophobia, pressure to make decisions without full knowledge of situations, interplay between personalities in a pressure cooker environment.

Here decisions are made at a drop of a hat, interplay is reduced to "I must register my disagreement, Sir" and pressure is at a near climax when the waitress interrupts to refill the coffee.

This film starts sounding like a dove, flaps like a hawk but then wanders off like a turkey!

What happens when the US President on the campaign trail is caught in a Colorado snow storm and holes up in a diner with his entourage only to learn from a t.v. broadcast that Iraq has again invaded Kuwait? "Deterrent" attempts to answer that question as it, with a handful of actors in one room, sets the stage for WWIII. Short of some implausible moments, a few oversights, and an obvious absence of the expected profusion of sweat such a situation would precipitate, this well scripted and well acted film gathers momentum quickly and manages to hold interest with the abundance of technical and moral issues it conjures up.

You should see this movie, it is interesting and entertaining. It reminds me of the Cuban Missile Crisis and another conflict with another country. It was good especially since it seemed like a low budget film due to the only setting through the movie was in the Diner.

This 1999 film features an appointed Vice President who assumes Presidential power upon the death of the President -- ergo, a completely unelected President. Interesting concept but more importantly, the basic plot has this President forced to face a major crisis in Iraq when all of his diplomatic and military power is concentrated on a crisis in Korea. Somebody must be reading this script in Washington right now -- but they switched the locations.

At any rate, all of the ranting negative reviews and the flowery positive reviews I have seen here on IMDB about this film seem to me to miss the point. What happens in the film is of limited note compared to very strange feeling of "deja now" watching this film in February, 2003 while watching its big brother on CNN live. See this film! It's interesting, a bit disturbing, and sightly prescient (only partially I hope).

Many of the comments here seem to want to review this movie as if it was a real major motion picture. In reality, this was very much a B movie and should be judged in the same class as movies with giant bunny rabbits and bug-eyed aliens. Not only is the story implausible, but they are adding this film to the definition of the word.

Like many B movies, this film has a few well-known actors who dropped in for the weekend to read it off of cue cards, were paid in cash, and somehow forget to list this film on their resume. Kevin Pollak and Timothy Hutton definitely had alimony payments coming due that weekend. Like all great B movies, the budget was miniscule. The movie takes place entirely in a diner, not because it was a good idea, but because they couldn't even afford decent stock footage. Beyond the few actors with names, the remaining cast was selected by who was in the commissary that day. What's really fun is how the set is obviously raided from scenery storerooms. What's with that British phone booth? And, B movies love to toss around the nukes, with no real thought to strategy, consequences, fallout, war powers act, or anything else at all. Last, but not least, we have the "surprise" ending, which even those who knew the surprise didn't seem to see coming.

There are clearly some fun things about this film. The Iraqi chemical and biological threat that gets sorta forgotten later in the film. The use of two different ocean nuclear detonations to make one supposed city detonation. The news network with more intelligence gathering capabilities than the US government (including their own spy satellite network), and yet having only one anchor and really crummy graphics. The pictures of F-117 fighters referred to as B2 bombers. The compressed time (just how fast were those missiles and bombers flying?), combined with "pacing by snail". The "don't mind us" attitude about random citizens sitting in on a war strategy meeting, occasionally butting in. Let's put the ultra top secret combination for the "football" on speakerphone so everyone can hear!

But, everyone has watched a lot of B movies and found them entertaining (or at least not too boring). I found this film entertaining and made it all of the way through it. It's worth a viewing just for fun (especially if you are not paying for it). After all, you know you saw "Night of the Lepus"!