Review: The Peacemaker

Government nuclear physicist Nicole Kidman (!) teams up with abrasive globe-trotting Army Colonel George Clooney when ten nuclear warheads are stolen from a Russian train that was meant to result in the warheads being deactivated as part of a treaty. They need to track down the warheads before the hijackers can sell them off to terrorists like Marcel Iures, who has a major grudge against the US for apparently ignoring atrocities in Bosnia. Armin Mueller-Stahl appears briefly as an old Russian comrade of Clooney’s.

 

One of George Clooney’s earlier starring efforts, and this 1997 terrorism movie from veteran TV (and debut film) director Mimi Leder probably isn’t one he looks back on fondly. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that 1997 just wasn’t ‘ol George’s year. This was the first big release from the uber-supergroup movie studio DreamWorks SKG (whose founders are Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen), and it’s a good thing that these guys are super rich, because their first offering was a box-office ‘meh’. For all the pre-release hype, it’s a bland, generic terrorist action-thriller, though Leder (who fared much better with the disaster-drama “Deep Impact”) swears it’s really a drama. Uh, if you say so, Mimi. There’s some surface-level entertainment here and there, especially early on. In fact, no matter what Leder thinks she has made here, everything involving action and movement in this pretty much works. Everything involving people’s mouths moving is a snore and brings the action down with it. It also looks rather foolish and superficial in the post 9/11 world.

 

Chief among the foolish aspects is George Clooney’s bull in a china shop character. His supposedly ace military guy is gung-ho to the point of reckless abrasiveness that simply doesn’t ring true. He’s also incredibly annoying and not remotely charming, though I must confess I usually do find Clooney just a tad below Richard Gere on the smug-o-meter. Perhaps his character rang a little truer in 1997, but it certainly doesn’t very true to me in 2016. I’ll admit that 19 years is a very long time, but c’mon, dated is dated and it’s not always easy to look at a film for the time in which it was made. Sometimes I can do that, but due to the sensitivity of the subject matter here, it’s a little hard to do that in this case. At least for me it is, others may disagree, though I bet George isn’t one of them. Nicole Kidman is fine (despite the worst attempt at an American accent of her entire career), but her supposedly very competent character ends up being a sidekick here, a reactive, near-passive role. Her character also practically drops her panties for Clooney at the end of their first scene together. The only bigger fan of Clooney is Clooney himself. In fact, the only cast member to acquit themselves well is Armin Mueller-Stahl, and he’s sadly not around long.

 

The film’s best asset by far is one of the strongest scores in the career of Hans Zimmer (“Rain Man”, “Backdraft”, “Inception”). It’s muscular and exciting, even at times when the film itself is dragging. That opening set-piece sure is slickly done, however, even if the terrorists’ night-vision gear is a cool visual that makes no logical sense whatsoever (Um, they can still kinda see you, geniuses. Plain as day, in fact).

 

It’s easy to see why no one really talks about this anymore, it has become somewhat obsolete. The action, although silly, is well-done and exciting. Unfortunately, that excitement is rendered null and void anytime the film focuses on dialogue, which is unfortunately quite often after a slick opening quarter. Scripted by Michael Schiffer (“Crimson Tide”, “The Four Feathers”), it’s pretty tedious, clichéd stuff. Well-directed in parts, but bland in most respects.

                  

Rating: C