It's rather like "Fail Safe" except that this time it's some renegade group of Russian rebels who launches a missile at a Russian target. The Russian defense system launches its missiles automatically in the direction of American targets. Boom -- and it hits the fan. Communications are cut off. Cities are blasted. The president's helicopter is downed. Control of American war gear and war policy is now turned over to the semi-conscious Secretary of the Interior, who's first question of his advisers is, "Are we losing?" (As if there will be a winner and a loser, as in a high school football game.) Thereafter, it gets complicated. It's fast paced. No time is wasted on personality or reality intrusions, except for the first few minutes, when Powers Boothe as the pilot of a problematic B-52 falls drunkenly into bed with his girl friend and co-pilot, Rebecca DeMornay. There must be a romance between a pilot and a female staff member or it's not an airplane movie.There are -- let me think -- there are two fist fights, three drawn pistols, two premature ejections, one bitch slap, one mid-air collision, one rude Russian premier, one and a half blindings, and a handful of thermonuclear bombs.It's taut. How could it not be? It's another movie about the accidental attack of one nuclear power on another, and the subsequent attempts to call the whole thing off. But it's not "Fail Safe" or "Doctor Strangelove"; it's a commercial product. The characters aren't uninteresting and they show the kind of diversity required for a movie like this. But they stay the same throughout.The novel, I would guess, is more accessible because in a book you have time to stretch things out -- get to know the people and their milieu. A movie is by nature more concise. It must leave things out. This film is marred by so many lacunae that it left me confused enough that the climax came as a complete surprise. Maybe I'm just dumb. That's what my friends keep telling me -- my former friends, anyway.If you want to see a serious dramatic film about a subject like this, do watch "Fail Safe." If you want to watch a masterpiece, try "Dr. Strangelove."

This film was recommended to me by a friend or (ex-friend as he has become to be known after this movie,)and I had high hopes for it, with stars such as rip torn and James Earl Jones.But this was truly awful, with truly awful acting and scriptwriting. The story could and should of been so much better, but it was soo bad, i actually signed up to IMDb, just to comment on it.Dropping nuclear bombs just to kill fighter jets? come on..... and classic lines like...."bogey's my are, them's bandits"......all the guy needed was the cowboy act and well it would be fantastic......I got 45mins & 36 seconds into this movie and then decided i really didn't care, fast forwarded to the last 5 mins, and pleased for the credit to come.However this was released onto DVD, ill never know......All i can summarise is, a truly awful movie, and one which makes you wish that a nuclear bomb had been dropped, just to save everyone from this movie.

The title of this junk drama should give notice that it's nothing more than a trite phrase turned into more Hollywood preaching.This looks like a script written in the 50s or 60s and updated to fit 1990. Or maybe just a script by one enamored with the nuclear Armageddon films of the 60s. It's still an anachronism. Director Jack Sholder has credentials when it comes to making good action films, and he does well here in the last 15-30 minutes, but it's hard to overcome the outlandish implausible plot elements that really end up sinking this.They are: Nobody of significant importance in Washington was protected in any way, even when it was knowledge several minutes ahead that a blast would hit the DC area. That's bull because there are plans in place since the 50s to do such on a moment's notice.The Sec of the Interior, chosen by the President and vetted by Congress, acts like a member of a political fringe group, and takes the advice of a nut-job Colonel over that of Admirals and Generals. Hardly even close to realistic.The military members of a bomber plane behave like they've never been in the service at all, each one following personal ideation rather than following orders. This one is particularly junk fiction, and would have not gone down as shown here, but of course it makes for melodrama.And then there's the usual Hollywood claptrap about every single person who is politically right of Hollywood being shown as a raving loony, eventually.But one thing, it's always fun to watch Rebecca De Morney get angry or in distress because when she does, she looks just like her Dad, Wally George, when he was shouting about stuff on his right-wing TV show. I'm sure she'd like the comparison, NOT!

Based on the previous reviews I read, here, I have to conclude that P.T. Barnum WAS right: "There IS a sucker born, every minute!" I served four years in SAC (Strategic Air Command), including a year-and-a-half at Offutt Air Force Base (Headquarters SAC, Omaha, Nebraska), and if ANYONE disobeyed orders, and behaved irrationally (like some of the "professionals" depicted in this awful, awful, awful movie did), they'd have been shot on the spot. Or, at least, we'd HOPE they would! MY GOD, the BAD acting in this movie, plus the BAD writing, the BAD production values (can you believe one reviewer on this board said, "top notch production values"? Yeah, based on WHAT, "Plan 9 From Outer Space"?!), the BAD special effects (on a level with the 60's TV series, "Batman," actually!) and the BAD direction, had me CRINGING in my seat! I quite literally HAD to watch this turkey to its unlikely conclusion, JUST TO SEE HOW BAD IT COULD GET! The ABSOLUTE WORST "acting" was perpetrated by the pilot, and co-pilot, of the B-52 crew (Powers Boothe and Rebecca De Mornay); DO you think the writer of this schlock could've had them on the same page, for at least two minutes??? I mean, one minute he (Boothe) is at her throat, and the very next minute he wants to "canoodle" with her! He calls her the BEST co-pilot he's EVER had, and a heartbeat later, he's giving her cyanide, and ordering her OUT of the cockpit! He (Boothe) engages in fisticuffs with another crew member, and later, THAT crew member ejects himself from the aircraft! JEEZE, at least Slim Pickens DIDN'T have THESE kinds of problems in the FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR superior, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." In that classic, the B-52 commander (Pickens) ONLY had to contend with a malfunctioning A-bomb. Speaking of "Dr. Strangelove," one of the crew members from that earlier movie returns in this one: James Earl Jones. Man, HIS character is SUPPOSED to be a SAC-trained professional? He waffled, so much, I wanted to call him "Aunt Jemima!" You want to take MY advice, and the advice of a few other sane, rational and intelligent posters on this thread? SKIP this crud, and watch the vastly superior "Dr. Strangelove," and "Fail-Safe." Even "On The Beach," with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire, for end-of-the-world scenarios. BOTTOM LINE: Even the spoof, "Airplane," with Leslie Nielsen (!!!), made more sense than this bottom-feeder did.