Film Review - Peacemaker, The

This film has a great feel. Too bad the story died.

So we're all being very good little human beings and we're taking apart all of our nukes. Well, that's fine and dandy until some bad guys decide to steal a few and hold the audience hostage for 123 minutes. Thus is the plot of The Peacemaker, your typical bang-bang chase flick without real character development nor a second act.

We are dazzled at how easy it is to swipe nukes in Russia, how simple it is to steal trains and access the equipment needed to detonate one. The film paints the Russian government as a bunch of idiots, and the Russian army as inept, except the bad people who can do anything. It just doesn't wash.

In the same tone, our heroes never make mistakes, never stop moving, always know how to find things on other people's secured computers (a lot of people can't find a file on their own machine!), and can travel around the world quickly without sleep.

Dietrich Lohmann's cinematography isn't going to get any awards. A few of the helicopter shots were far too shaky in the era of gyroscopically controlled cameras. There were also times when the camera would pan, blurring the image to the point of pain. I wondered at the time what type of camera was being used and what was wrong with it.

On the other hand, the Music Hans Zimmer chose was wonderful. Fast when the pace of the action picked up, and slow piano in the quieter times when we needed to get inside the head of our bad guy. Zimmer is the unsung hero of this movie.

The Peacemaker is a simplistic film that is under par in action movie plots. A few plot twists, and a little more about the characters would have been welcomed.

Dust Bag Full

Film Facts

Directed by Mimi Leder

Released in 1997

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewed by Mongo