OUTBREAK
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1995 Michael John Legeros
(WB)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (IN THE LINE OF FIRE, DAS BOOT)
Written by Laurence Dworet, Robert Roy Pool
Cast Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey,
Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland
MPAA Rating "R" (presumably for language)
Running Time 127 minutes
==
If we learned anything during those lazy Saturday afternoon sci-fi film festivals of our youth, it's that there's nothing more fun than watching the end of the world. WAR OF THE WORLDS ... INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ... THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE ... great disaster flicks from an era when our fears were fueled by the space race and the arms race. Decades later, those fears are still there. Only now we've traded our space suits for bio suits.
In the super-creepy OUTBREAK--which has nothing to do with the Richard Preston bestseller CRISIS IN THE HOT ZONE--the threat is the deadly Motaba virus, which has spread from the African jungle to the sleepy California community Cedar Creek. The disease is 100% contagious and 100% fatal. The victims bleed from the inside out.
Only one scientist (Dustin Hoffman) knows how bad the situation really is, and, of course, he's the lone voice of logic against every possible cliche, from the ex-wife colleague (Rene Russo) to the skeptical military commander (Morgan Freeman). He even has a wet-behind-the-ears sidekick!
Director Wolfgang Petersen turns the screws very effectly, even if he paces the film like a sequel to SPEED. The are very few pauses in the first ninety minutes, so some scenes seem rushed. No problem, There's still *plenty* of paranoia to go around. The sight of soliders barricading a quarantined town is something to see. As is a single-take tour of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. The best, by far, is a sequence showing airborne microbes spewing from a coughing patron in a movie theater!
Tissue, anyone?
The whole thing works very well until the final reel, at which point the film falls apart. Credit a pair of tacked-on helicopter chases and a completely unnecessary confrontation between Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland (as a goofy general). The added action is pretty stupid, and it almost causes an important plot point to get glossed over. But who am I to argue with audience testers?
CAMEO NOTE: Watch for an unbilled appearance by J. T. Walsh, who wanders
through a single scene at the White House. Is there a rule
that requires him to appear in *every* thriller involving a
conspiracy?
BOTTOM LINE: Contagious fun with a lousy ending.
Grade: B-
-- Michael J. Legeros Raleigh, North Carolina
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