The Peacemaker (1997)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Mimi Leder

Writers (WGA):

Leslie Cockburn (article) &
Andrew Cockburn (article) ...

Release Date:

26 September 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Thriller

Tagline:

This is not a test.

Plot:

A US Army colonel and a civilian woman supervising him must track down stolen Russian nuclear weapons before they're used by terrorists.

Plot Keywords:

Train Crash | Train | New York | Russia | Nuclear Weapons

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

George Clooney	...	Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe
Nicole Kidman	...	Dr. Julia Kelly
Marcel Iures	...	Dusan Gavrich
Aleksandr Baluyev	...	General Aleksandr Kodoroff (as Alexander Baluev)
Rene Medvesek	...	Vlado Mirich
Gary Werntz	...	Terry Hamilton
Randall Batinkoff	...	Ken
Jim Haynie	...	General Garnett
Alexander Strobele	...	Dietrich Schuhmacher
Holt McCallany	...	Mark Appleton
Michael Boatman	...	CPN Beach
Joan Copeland	...	Senator Helen Bevens
Carlos Gómez	...	Santiago
Armin Mueller-Stahl	...	Dimitri Vertikoff
Slavko Juraga	...	Stevo

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence and some language.

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian | Serbo-Croatian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Brazil:12 | Iceland:16 | Philippines:PG-13 | New Zealand:M | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Belgium:KT | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Germany:16 (w) | Mexico:B | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R (Certificate #35519)

Filming Locations:

Bratislava, Slovakia

Company:

DreamWorks SKG

Trivia:

For the final scene at the church, the art director looked for several churches in the New York area....some accepted but when parishioners learned that the movie had to do with terrorists, they pulled out because they did not want to have that image. The final scene is actually CGI.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In photographs of the truck supposedly taken by satellite, foreground objects are larger than those in the background. This kind of perspective would not be visible in an image taken by satellite.

Quotes:

[Devoe is holding the passenger list of the train]
Colonel Tom Devoe: Forty men on board.
Julia Kelly: Well, this is meaningless.
Colonel Tom Devoe: It's in Russian.
Julia Kelly: [in Russian] It's meaningless because they haven't listed anybody's rank.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Kill Ari: Part 2 (#3.2)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

NOCTURNE IN F MINOR, OP. 55 NO.1

underrated/over-criticized

Some movies stick in your consciousness. This is one of them. Although the script is not that original in its major components, Mimi Leder made a very strong visual statement here. The train hi-jacking sequence is about as good as anything on film. Although many reviewers here see the movie as one long cliché, the anti-hero is really protesting Western militarism and the ubiquitous arms industry. He's suffered a great personal loss at the hands of the "let's sell guns to everybody" group. The "Peacekeepers" ignore the slaughter going on around them. Blowing up the U.N. and a sizable chunk of Manhattan may not be the best answer, but in the context of the film it makes sense. In many ways the film is much more subtle than just "good guys/bad guys." Look again and watch for the nuances.