Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Admirable film.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Director Roland Joffe, who never came close to His acclaimed early achievements (The Killing Fields (1984) and The Mission (1986), delivers a much Maligned Interpretation of 'The Manhattan Project". The well known Collaboration of Scientists Sequestered to develop the Atomic Bomb.The Film is Basically the Conflict/Cooperation of General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer, Their Philosophies and Determination to achieve a "Wonder Weapon" to End the Second World War. It's a Wonder that it Succeeded given the Enormity of it all and Conflicts by Everyone Involved.Entering into an Unknown Territory of Unintended Consequences and Intended Destruction combined with Unspeakable Immediate and Long Term Decay of People and the Planet. This was a Difficult Film to Pull Off as Mainstream Entertainment and Intellectualizing. The Effort was not Greeted Kindly by Audiences and Critics.But it is Better than its Reputation and is Thought Provoking, if not a Grand Piece of Cinema. Paul Newman as Groves and Dwight Schultz as Oppenheimer are equally Successful as Convincing Combatants. John Cusack's Everyman, who Suffers First and Foremost, is Symbolic of the Power of Plutonium and Uranium.Man Tinkering with the Stuff of the "Gods" is an Historical Contemplation since Thinking became a Thing and will Likely be Food for Thought for Ever. The Movie uses Real Life, circa WWII, as a Vehicle to Vent that Concern and is Worth a Watch for it is a Subject that is Timeless in Regards to Our Place in the Universe.

This rendition is as about as far from the historical reality of the Manhattan Project as a docudrama can get. It's not only a bad movie, but it's almost as far from the truth as one can get. If you want to see a genuinely accurate depiction of the true story of the Manhattan project, as well as being a terrific movie in its own right, watch "Day One" instead with Brian Dennehy playing a realistic General Groves and Michael Tucker (of "L.A. Law" fame) playing an excellent portrayal of Leo Szilard, the true genius behind the bomb. Now that movie is as true to life as any historical movie I've seen. This one, however, is one best skipped.

It's 1942 and 9 months after Pearl Harbor. Gen. Leslie Groves (Paul Newman) expected to move out from behind the desk to go to the frontlines. Instead, he is transferred to his perceived dead-end boondoggle. Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) advises him to gather the scientists in an isolate place for creative stress. Together they would lead the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Michael Merriman (John Cusack) is the young wide-eyed scientist. Kathleen Robinson (Laura Dern) is the nurse who falls for him. He befriends Capt. Schoenfield (John C. McGinley) who is the doctor investigating radiation. Seth Neddermeyer comes up with the idea for implosion. Oppenheimer is cheating on his wife Kitty (Bonnie Bedelia) with communist sympathizer Jean Tatlock (Natasha Richardson).The movie achieves something a little more difficult. It made a bunch of scientists interesting and it made the science understandable. I do hope that the story is more fact than fiction. However I won't rest my review on its accuracies. Paul Newman delivers a forceful performance. I wish Dwight Schultz is a bigger actor to counter Newman's star power. The story is compelling although the puppy love story is a bit artificial.

This account of the experiments that led up to the development of the atomic bomb in 1945 chooses to deal with the issue far more from a human perspective than from a scientific perspective. The focus is on the men who were involved with the project - especially Gen. Leslie Groves (Paul Newman), who was in charge, and the lead scientist Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz.) The more technical issues aren't ignored, but the story revolves around the way in which the project impacts on the men's personal lives. On the negative side, the movie takes on at times a bit of a soap opera feel, dealing more with the men's love interests than with the project itself. It was also unfortunate that the movie chose to create the fictional character of "Michael Merriman" (played by John Cusack.) The accident in which Merriman is poisoned by radiation and later dies really happened, but it took place in 1946, long after the war was over, and the victim was actually a Canadian physicist named Louis Slotin. Why this imaginary bit of history was conjured up wasn't really clear to me, except for the fact that it obviously dramatized the dangers of the project, and allowed for the insertion of a tear jerker moment, when a nurse who had fallen in love with him (Laura Dern) comes to him on his deathbed to make sure he knows her feelings. Emotional to be sure, but perhaps a bit too much dramatic licence was taken there.Where the movie hit home, though, was in the depiction of the growing moral qualms felt by the scientists who were working on the project. At first working willingly when it seemed as if there was a race to get the bomb before Nazi Germany, questions began to bubble when it was discovered that the Nazis had no real interest in the bomb. Then they were defeated and Japan didn't even have the capacity to make a bomb. The moral questions were very real, and very well depicted.Everyone involved with this did a credible job. I didn't think this was an outstanding movie, but it provided a glimpse at what was going on in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the early 40's - obviously a key period in human history.