Truly Dreadful Film

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The Cold War and the ever-looming threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union inspired many works of its time. These included films that explored just how a nuclear war might begin with such classic 1960s films as dark comedy Dr. Strangelove and the more serious Fail Safe. Coming at the tail end of the Cold War in 1990 between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break up of the Soviet Union, HBO's By Dawn's Early Light was the last triumphant grasp of that sub-genre of Cold War storytelling as it told a gripping tale of potential Armageddon on the edge of peace.Based on the 1983 novel Trinity's Child by William Prochnau, it's a movie made from the same mold as those aforementioned Cold War nightmares. A nuclear detonation over a Russian city triggers an immediate response from the Soviet Union, setting in motion nuclear strikes and counter-strikes. The movie follows numerous threads, one being a B-52 bomber piloted by Major Cassidy (Powers Boothe) and Captain Moreau (Rebecca De Mornay) who are romantically involved as well as being co-pilots. Meanwhile in Washington is the American President (Martin Landau) who from the moment a call from NORAD awakens him tries to maintain control over a situation that very soon gets out of control. Flying above the country are the two Doomsday Planes, the Air Force's Looking Glass with the general callsign Alice (James Earl Jones) and the E-4B Nightwatch command plane. On board the latter is the Secretary of the Interior (Darren McGavin) who becomes acting President and faces a difficult choice thanks to conflicting military advisers including an admiral with the callsign Harpoon (Jeffrey DeMunn) and hawkish military adviser Colonel Fargo (Rip Torn). It's a packed plot, to say the least. Credit goes to scriptwriter Bruce Gilbert who took Prochnau's novel and faithfully adapted it for the screen adding only the romance subplot which is perhaps the movie's biggest weakness as it adds little but distracting cheesy moments. Beyond that, however, Gilbert and director Jack Sholder graft a gripping tale built around the dilemmas many of them face and the debates about the merits (if one can call it that) of how nuclear war might play out. The film is rarely static though and features the occasional punch of action from nuclear explosions to Soviet fighters pursuing the B-52. Indeed, time has revealed thanks to declassified documents and interviews in books such as Garret Graff's Raven Rock that some of the concerns in the film about Continuity of Government, the line of presidential succession, and confusion over who was in charge of fighting such a war were legitimate The result is that whatever else can be said for the movie it is never dull.It's also well acted. Being made for TV and on a cable channel in cable's early days one might not have expected much. Instead, the movie features a top-notch cast. Boothe and De Mornay are believable as pilots of a B-52 though even the chemistry between them never overcomes the cheesiness of the romance subplot. Landau is well suited as the President who finds himself in a remarkable situation with Landau playing not just dignity but also the internal debate and even frustration that goes with the job. Elsewhere, both Jones as Alice and DeMunn's Harpoon carry all of the presence a fine character actor can bring to the part as he deals with conflicting orders and trying to make the right decision. McGavin's acting president is an interesting character, a novice thrown in on the deep end who gives into the idea of fighting this most destructive conflict to "win it all". Rip Torn's performance as the hawkish Colonel Fargo is especially neat and convincing, never dipping into potential Strangelove parody territory but as someone who is thinking about nuclear war like it's just another conflict. The cast is rounded off nicely by Peter MacNicol as the President's military aide, Nicolas Coster as the general in charge of NORAD, and the various actors playing the crews of the various aircraft in question. It's a solid cast which brings the story nicely to life on a human level.The film's production values, though low budget, are also solid. The sets, especially for NORAD and the White House in the film's opening half hour or so, are neither flashy or completely convincing with the White House situation room, in particular, being a casualty of the budget. On the other hand, the interiors of all the aircraft involved are quite convincing if not always entirely accurate portrayals of the real aircraft but they get the point across nicely. The special effects, all important here with brief depictions of nuclear devastation and aircraft in flight, are all solid for the pre-CGI era with the model shots looking particularly good. The score from composer Trevor Jones is sparse but effective while the aforementioned mention direction from Sholder makes the most of the film's budget to great effect.By Dawn's Early Light ranks as being among the last great nuclear war films of the Cold War era. From a fully plotted, tense script to strong performances and solid if low budget production values, it was also perhaps the last movie to depict the outbreak of war between the US and the Soviet Union. While the production values and unfortunate romantic subplot keep it from the level of a Fail Safe, it remains worth a watch even now. For with the renewed tensions regarding nuclear weapons, perhaps its plot isn't as relegate to the past as we would like it to be.

"By Dawn's Early Light" is one of the best nuclear thriller's around. It came out as the Cold War was ending, but it is even more prevalent now, as it opens with accidental launch by Russian dissidents. The current situation in Ukraine comes to mind. In any case, the movie does a great job, especially for made-for-TV (HBO) film that also has pretty good special effects for the time and budget. The acting is top notch, with special nods going to James Earl Jones as the tough, fair, and smart Major General Alice, Powers Boothe as the determined Major Cassidy flying the main B-52, and Martin Landau as the President trying to do the right thing. Also, the short appearance of Nicolas Coaster as General Renning at the beginning to the film is also notable. This is a great nuclear thriller, right up there with the classic Dr. Strangelove but from a different perspective. Highly recommended!

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."

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!