The Peacemaker (1997)

Simply A Masterpiece

Must See Movie...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Peacemaker was the film that launched Dreamworks, the studio created by Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg. The studio that was supposed to revitalise Hollywood but its own dreams fizzled out less than a decade later.George Clooney and Nicole Kidman go out of the gates helped with talent from the television show ER such as director Mimi Leder, so Clooney will feel comfortable with his transition from television star to movie star.Watching the film again, the start of the movie looked rather familiar. It seems Spielberg riffed it for his fourth Indiana Jones film in 2008. Some rogue Russian military officers kill the soldiers in a transport train and steal nuclear warheads. One warhead is left behind which crashes to an oncoming passenger train and is then detonated.The Russians claim it is an accident. The White House nuclear expert Dr Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) believes that the bomb was set off deliberately by terrorists rebels from somewhere like Chechnya. Maverick Colonel Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) believes that this was an elaborately staged heist to market nuclear weapons to the highest bidder. With the bomb going off it could be months before anyone can get to the accident site to find out what happens, enough time for the villains to carry out their plan.Kelly and Devoe join forces and discover that the plan involves more than selling nuclear missiles to a rogue state but linked to the events of the breakup of Yugoslavia as a Bosnian Serb leader wants to make a statement.The film is a solid action thriller, some of it is nonsense. The main villain Dusan describes himself as a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim. I have no idea what this meant but it might feel insulting to the survivors of the Bosnian ethnic genocide in the 1990s.However it is a well paced thriller, some of the CGI does look cheap, it appears to be intelligent by mentioning all the current hot spots of the era. There is good chemistry between Kidman and Clooney but their characters are thinly sketched. The film has nothing that makes it outstanding or even memorable.

Nicole kid-man was so sexy but clooney was looking gay & a wannabe tough guy.Russians are portrayed as bad guys again in this who wants to launch a nuclear attack on USA but why because the main bad guy got betrayed & wanted revenge .i really don't care for stuff like this anymore because the only movie i lover of bombs is broken arrow of john travolta.the climax of the movie is bad & rushed & you'll see why i love movies but this ant-Russian & all that stuff is gone too far.after 9-11 a lot of films came out with more concepts like the plus point was that they have Afghanistan & Pakistan & terrorist groups stories & osama you know what i am saying.i cant understand clooney this guy acts the same in every film & his hairstyle also never change.my rating of the peacemaker is 2/10 watch only for Nicole kid-man.

This movie would have been just as good if it was a plot for a James Bond movie. US military and civilian are tasked to find a stolen nuclear bomb. Cliff hanger of course is its detonation time, and how the two will find the bomb.I seriously think that this is one of the best role George Clooney played. He looks so real as the military officer. His chemistry with Nichole Kidman is really good too.The movie is hard to rate in that it's really well put together, but acting is bit weak, and this takes away from the tension. There's not enough character in George Clooney's role to make him interesting. Like many others who likes this movie, I like it for the story, and the quality of the production. It's an intriguing story, and is worth a watch for its story alone.

I was particularly interested in this film because I was curious how Hollywood would treat this type of scenario, and of course, anything with Nicole Kidman in it has to be at least somewhat entertaining. I actually worked for DOE, in the national labs at Berkeley and also Los Alomos, a number of years ago, and a consequence of such have become quite familiar with nuclear ordnance in its myriad forms, including the so-called "suitcase nukes" that both the former Soviet Union & the USA have developed.Make no mistake, these types of miniaturized nuclear devices do exist, including from decommissioned MRV ballistic missiles and the like. The concept of nuclear warheads, slipping into the wrong hands does very much exist, although in current times this may more likely come from Pakistan, or any variety of "rogue" states who could acquire such through third party brokers. As a side note, any of these types of nuclear devices do require periodic "refurbishing", the details of which I won't elaborate on, but after a certain length of time, the capacity for thermo-nuclear detonation does diminish.Having said all that, does the film realistically portray any of this actually translating into a potential situation? Well . . . not exactly, but I think it's interesting that at least the concept was presented in a not overly ridiculous fashion. Sadly, with tremendous irony, I noted the twin trade towers in several of the background scenes. How odd it is that history often unfolds in the least expected ways. It was, after all, not a miniaturized nuke that was the greatest act of terrorism and evil ever perpetrated on US citizens, but rather planes filled with people . . . and boxcutters as the weaponry of terror.Was the film entertaining? Yes. Could it have been done better? Not sure if I have a qualified answer, but it certainly could have been done much worse.A bit dated? Perhaps . . . but I still think it's worth the time to watch, and contemplate.