Deterrence Reviews

A tense geopolitical thriller that leaves a curiously bad aftertaste. While campaigning for the 2008 primaries, President Walter Emerson (Kevin Pollak) winds up snowbound in a remote Colorado diner with his national security advisor (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and chief of staff (Timothy Hutton). Meanwhile, the outside world is about to end: Without warning, Iraqi troops have overrun a UN peacekeeping mission and have once again invaded Kuwait. With chemical and biological weapons aimed at key cities, Uday Hussein — son of Saddam and the leader of Iraq — dares anyone to do anything about it. In what amounts to a high-stakes game of chicken that makes the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a schoolyard shoving match, President Emerson gives Hussein a little more than an hour — the remaining running time of the film — to withdraw his troops before the U.S. hurls a nuclear missile at Baghdad. Hussein responds by pointing 23 nuclear warheads of his own at cities around the globe. It's a little like FAIL SAFE meets THE PETRIFIED FOREST, and thanks to some extra attention to character detail, it works: Emerson is cast as a nonelected incumbent, a former vice president suddenly in the driver's seat after the death of his predecessor and who must now prove his mettle. But when it comes to thrills, writer-director Rod Lurie assumes the worst about his audience's attitude toward the Middle East and preys on fears of fundamentalist religious fanaticism. That the deck is stacked from the start — to say more would spoil the surprise ending — isn't nearly as bothersome as Lurie's confused foreign policy. He laments the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and while questioning the morality of ever using them demonstrates that widespread nuclear destruction must remain the prerogative of the United States alone.