DETERRENCE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Paramount Classics Director: Rod Lurie Writer: Rod Lurie Cast: Kevin Pollak, Timothy Hutton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sean Astin, Clotilde Courau, Bajda Djola, Mark Thompson, Michael Mantell, Kathryn Morris, Clotilde Courau, Ryan Cutrona
"Deterrence" mines the same fields as "Dr. Strangelove" but Rod Lurie, who directs and has written his first feature film, is about as distant from Stanley Kubrick as New York is from Perth, Australia. The story takes place in a single room- -the only "opening up" occurring from file films--and fulfills all the requirements of a particularly inept off-off-Broadway play: barely workmanlike actors who look as though they couldn't make it as waiters, virtually non-existent direction, and a script that is so ludicrous that the "filmed play" looks more like William Inge's comedy "Bus Stop" than like Sidney Lumet's "Fail-Safe." If you recall Inge's story, a bus out of Kansas City pulls up at a cheerful roadside diner in the middle of a howling snowstorm, with all roads blocked as some weary travelers get set to hole up until the morning when all hell breaks loose. If Lurie had billed his movie as a lampoon, he'd be off the hook. But if you take a look at his agitprop statement in the production notes, you might be appalled at his one-dimensional, simplistic view of America's role in the world--all of which comes out in his depiction of a president who represents the banality of evil.
Lurie, an Israeli-born American citizen who went to West Point, now bills himself as pacifistic and somewhat to the left of center in his politics. He appears to say in his notes that Truman's decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan was inspired by racism, pure and simple, since Japan was about to surrender imminently with no land invasion by Americans necessary: that the U.S. used the bomb not just once, but twice on the Japanese civilians simply to show the Russians that we had the weapon. Similarly he believes that President Walter Emerson (Kevin Pollak), Lurie's fatuous creation, feels little compunction about ordering the nuking of Baghdad during a crisis since after-all-they're-only-Arabs. If the acting, direction and screenplay of "Deterrence" do not strike you as absurd, perhaps Lurie's simplistic evocation of truth will. All in all, the picture is a travesty in every regard.
The scene opens during a brutal snowstorm in Aztec, Colorado in the year 2008, the inhabitants of a diner being a cross-section of Americans. Enter the president of the United States (Pollak), his chief of staff Marshall Thompson (Timothy Hutton), his national security adviser, Gayle Redford (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Special Agent Dexter (Ryan Cutrona). Trapped by the storm just as the polls close in Colorado's presidential primary, the president naturally awes the cafe's denizens, who include the owner, Harvey (Bajda Djola), a 30- ish married couple, Taylor Woods (Michael Mantell) and Lizzie (Kathryn Morris), a clueless waitress with a Quebecois accent, Katie (Clotilde Courau), and redneck Ralph (Sean Astin). When Iraqi dictator Udei Hussein takes advantage of the president's involvement in the primary and of a crisis in Asia to invade Kuwait once again, President Pollak--a short, uncharismatic man who had never been elected to the office but who had taken over from the deceased chief executive-- does not have the manpower to divert to the Middle East to turn back the invaders. In the most preposterous decision of this thoroughly ludicrous story, he ratchets up the ante on the spot. If Udei does not --get this--withdraw within two hours and surrender himself in the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. will drop a nuclear bomb on Baghdad.
Everyone in the audience during the special screening of this movie was either biting his lip or simply being polite. How else to explain the complete absence of uproarious laughter in the congregation?
But that's not all. Dismissing the advice of his national security adviser and his chief of staff, the president instead calls upon the American people, i.e. those middle-Americans slurping coffee and serving chili in the cafe, to give their opinions. With the fate of the world in the balance (since Iraq has threatened to drop its own recently purchased nuclear missiles on New York, Sydney, Washington, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and other Western allies), President Emerson puffs casually on his cigar, gives a buzz on the pay phone to his wife back in Washington (who tells him that she will not be his Eva Braun), and goes on national TV. He even discusses football with the pilot of the B-52 which is approaching Iraqi air space.
Timothy Hutton has been made up to look like "Fail-Safe"'s Henry Fonda, thereby losing the boyish charm he displayed so well in "The Substance of Fire." But the 41-year-old Kevin Pollak is perfectly cast: he got his start as a stand-up comic on the San Francisco club circuit.
Rated R. Running Time: 101 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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