Countdown to Zero (2010)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This documentary is based and constructed around one quote by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his address before the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961:"Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."The logic of the film is simple. We have' more than twenty thousand nuclear devices in the world in the hands of a very small number of countries and thus in the hands of machines that control them, military personnel that manages the machine and political personnel that controls the military personnel that controls the machines that control the nuclear devices. All along that command line individuals can make the wrong evaluation of a situation, take the wrong decision on the basis of that wrong evaluation and within 20 to 30 minutes it will have happened: one city or more will have been destroyed, and within a few more minutes, retaliation will come. And once it is started it cannot be stopped. There is no comeback, no turn-back, nor step-back. In that command line we just need an accident caused by some mechanical failure, or some miscalculation brought up by the misinterpretation of some data provided by the machines, or some madness, or let's say some mental derangement of one actor in that chain of command. The film provides several instances of close to the brink situations that occurred over the years. Evaluation of the damage in the case of one nuclear weapon on one big city in the world is just over-dramatic and seems to only play on fear in the audience. If the public is only motivated by fear, then there is no hope.Hope can only come if the public, the vast wide general public is convinced we have to get rid of nuclear weapons not because they are afraid but because of positive reasons like the fact humanity means life, means creative development, means continued progress, and nuclear weapons, both possession and use, are none of these, not life, not creative development, not continued progress. We could also develop some positive ethical arguments going the same way, provided we clearly see the difference between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Just like nuclear power can be used in nuclear submarines or in nuclear ships it may have one day to be used in space travel, and not fission but fusion. Not using nuclear energy for weapons is definitely nothing but an ethical decision and the mark of ethical human control of humanity. It is not because the internal combustion engine was used in tanks that we are supposed to ban the internal combustion engine, all cars and many other applications. It is not because some planes are military bombers that we are supposed to ban air travel.That's the first shortcoming of this film: nuclear energy is not clearly differentiated from nuclear weapons and yet only the French images project the confusion by stating "NON AU NUCLÉAIRE" (No Nuclear) meaning the rejection of both nuclear energy and weapons, though in fact in the mind of the French people who put forward this motto (the Greens), it is nuclear energy they have in mind. The images from all other countries and the interviews always target nuclear weapons. But it would be clear to say that nuclear energy is another can of worms and these worms might be earth worms, very useful worms for agriculture, gardening and hence surviving hunger. The second shortcoming is the very ambiguous message about terrorism and about proliferation. The film insists with images and long sequences on the Islamic danger of Pakistan who has nuclear weapons – supposedly thanks to the Chinese, though we do not know where the Chinese got the technology, from the Soviets maybe? – and who sells the blue print as much as the technology to anyone who wants to pay. The Pakistani bomb is called the Islamic Nuclear Bomb and it is at once connected to Al Qaeda and Iran, and allusions to more Muslim countries in the Middle East or the Arab world are added. Nothing is said about the proliferation of nuclear weapons to India, the Hindu Bomb, etc., and where it could have come from – the Soviets I guess? And still along that line there are a few elements about North Korea, still under the rule of Kim the Second, not yet Kim the Third. This presentation is absolutely biased and debatable. And what about France, Great Britain and Israel?Terrorism is a problem but we have other forms of terrorism than Islamic terrorism, even today. Terrorism has causes and to only speak of containing and controlling it is a waste of time since it will bring no solution to the real causes. And by the way how did the apartheid South Africa manage to get nuclear fuel to be able to build nuclear weapons at a time when a total embargo was imposed onto this country for anything military? And the film is a little bit short on the fact that there are an unevaluated and definitely uncontrolled amount of Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium running loose on the planet's black market, enough to produce thousands of nuclear weapons of various categories from a dirty bomb to a real nuclear weapon. And this black market can only exist because of the diamond and other gems black market, because of the uncontrolled speculative financial market and the vast international financial laundering machine through and via the various fiscal paradises and tax havens.To be seen, widened and discussed as much as possible.Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

Firstly I understand how many people will feel after watching this movie. That another liberal agenda is being played up and the end to nuclear armament is just asking for terrorism to advance within our country, you couldn't be more wrong. Being in the military for almost ten years it was my experience that most folks get three things wrong when they think about someone using such a device in our country. One, they believe that it comes from a country. This kind of terrorism has no country and has no head to govern it, merely opportunity. The idea that you can "nuke them back" gets a little complicated when the bomb may come from a diplomatically friendly country or even from within our own. Two that such a device is complicated and needs teams of people and money to create, not so. Such a device can be crudely manufactured with a lead pipe 4gm of enriched plutonium and a shotgun shell. The devices themselves do not need to be complex to kill several thousand people, and the people setting them off probably have no qualms about killing themselves in the process. A crudely made machine can be made from almost anything you can find in a hardware store and those items are so everyday that they will not raise any FBI flags. Lastly, Three that there is a solution to such a problem. There isn't one. While the film makes a proud gesture at telling us that all we need to do is this... That is a pipe dream and besides we have gone to far down the path of destruction to make it any better. So in all of this what might be the way to make any of these problems go away. Again I'm sorry to say, nothing. We now have to live in a world where this "might" happen any day at any time. The only thing we can do is hope that we find better ways of detecting potential threats than by clandestinely stumbling into them. The movie is a gem in terms of showing that the "human" part of these weapons is the most dangerous part of them. With respect to our last president he finger that could push the button was also attached to the brain of a recovering alcoholic judgment should be reserved for the viewer and their experience but keep in mind that these things however embellished are real and are waiting right within and outside your door.

I have concerns about how they tell, describe and illustrate how you can go about getting, transporting, smuggling bomb materials. Overall the movie calls for the destruction of all bombs, which is of course a great idea and worthy of praise.In fact the entire movie is worthy of praise. The movie is well put together visually and stylistically.It calls for action as well from the viewers, but like I said there are some parts, I feel, that it seemed like the movie was daring us to do it. I am not ignorant of the strong possibility that the powers the be and wish to set off NUKES already know these things, but still..... I just didn't like that.

Growing up in the eighties I had one fear that overshadowed everything from my parents dying to the worst of schoolyard bullies. It was the fear of nuclear war.I wasn't old enough to be able to do anything about it, but I was intelligent enough to understand that if NATO and the Soviet Union launched their missiles, not only would countless millions die in minutes-- those who were unlucky enough to survive would face a grim, if not hopeless, future.There was plenty of learning material, documentaries and excerpts from popular culture that detailed what a nuclear holocaust would look like. Being cursed with a very vivid imagination, I would lie sleepless at night, listening to passenger planes over Gothenburg, wondering if they were bombers or missiles passing above, and if this time it would be the end of humanity.One of the worst things about this was that mom and dad couldn't say "it was just a horror movie" or "it was only your imagination" because it wasn't. The threat was very real and it could have happened.The most startling revelation for me was the fact that this documentary revealed that the nuclear standoff between the USA and Russia still isn't over. This shocked me utterly, because I had believed that the nuclear disarmament after the fall of communism had been much more complete.They still have hydrogen bombs ready to be launched at a moments notice, and once, because of a mistake, the Russians nearly did. After the cold war was over."The weapons of war must be abolished, before they abolish us."