This is a movie that takes nuclear brinkmanship and adds a few twists. I'm not a low budget film fan at all, but this movie is one of those that will make you forget about the budget & will have you so immersed that it will just leave you mouthing the "WOW" (or some variation of that) at the end of the film. Although the movie is a bit dated now, it still ranks as one of the best examples of what it really takes to make a great movie... simply great acting & directing. Very few movies make my best movie list, Kevin Pollack has 2 movies on that list (the other being "The Usual Suspects")which is a feat in & of itself.

Far from being an irrelevant glimpse of an alternate history that never materialized, the fictional re-invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in "Deterrence" provides a highly relevant alternative to the U.S. approach to rogue states in the world today. With the U.S. fighting two wars and the budget looking grim, it crosses the mind of even the most hawkish among us whether feckless air wars and costly ground wars are worthwhile. The alternative is simple, elegant, and ghastly: a promise to drop a nuclear bomb on our enemy if they do not meet U.S. demands. Imagine if Afghanistan or Pakistan had been told in September 2001 to turn over Bin Laden and Mullah Omar or face the imminent nuclear annihilation of Kabul and Islamabad. Would Bin Laden not have been swinging from the end of a noose ten years ago? It's a compelling and stark bit of realpolitik, suitable for discussions at the café among political intellectuals. But it works well as drama too as we watch Kevin Pollak's character, Walter Emerson, grow in the movie from a mousy, underwhelming "second banana" into a steely, decisive leader. Director Rod Lurie says that ultimately, Pres. Emerson is a villain for making such a heinous threat. Viewers can make up their own minds. Some of the scenes involving the local customers in the diner border on cheesy, awkward, or artificial; but the tension, surprising decisions, and political intrigues played out in this film make it a must-see national security drama.

When I first saw this movie, I was taken aback by the originality of the screenplay. Fact is stranger than fiction, and in Lurie's script, he achieved a fine balance of technical expertise and bizarre plot twists. If you've ever wished you were a fly on the wall of a secret meeting regarding major life and death decision-making, then this movie is going to give you the ride you've been looking for. Kevin Pollak is phenomenal as the President, doing his best to do what is right in a very bad situation. He's very believable and leads us to believe in his rationale through his passion and understanding of the issues at the heart of this film. Sean Astin plays an irritant to everyone and nails the part, so much so you want to be the one to knock him out with one punch as the movie progresses. Timothy Hutton is brilliant in playing the President's adviser Marshall Thompson, who meticulously injects his strong opinions without upstaging Pollak's wonderful performance. The rhythm and tempo both actors maintain throughout is flawless. This movie was the sleeper of the year and proved that sometimes fiction can be as compelling as truth, given the right actors, a good solid script and competent directing. Therefore, I rate it 9 out of ten stars.

In order for a techno-thriller to work, it must at least be plausible enough for us to be willing to suspend belief. This film has absolutely no feel or understanding of even the most basic features of its subject matter. It tries to fake credibility while throwing around ridiculous non-facts such as a 100 megaton bomb, a B2 stealth bomber being casually tracked by Iraqi radar, a TV communications satellite that somehow is equipped with not only a real time TV camera but one that films ground level shots. When the movie shows a clip of the B2, we instead see an F-117 which looks absolutely nothing like a B2. The super duper satellite (actually just one of a small constellation of satellites the TV network supposedly owns) seems to be able to warp back 50 years at will because it captures familiar black and white footage that is obviously from one of the early H-bomb test in the Pacific Ocean. This is more remarkable still as the explosion is supposed to be taking place in the middle of a desert.The President and his advisors are playing out their full intercontinental nuclear game of brinksmanship in a little over an hour, and yet still have time to chat up the morons repeatedly at length in the diner. For some inexplicable reason the morons, including one gun toting one, have not been sent packing by the Secret Service but instead are allowed to butt into and sidetrack negotiations between heads of state in which tens of millions of lives are at stake. The only moron who is even mildly rebuked is a ludicrous right wing homophobic bigoted anti-Semite cardboard character of the sort only a Hollywood provincial pinhead could believe exists out there in fly-over land.All these features seem to be in the film to give it heft and credibility so that it can go about preaching some kind of demented apocalyptic message to us. In the course of their proselytizing, the films writers have their President off handily incinerate a large city of mostly innocents in order to demonstrate what a peace loving mensch he is.Alfred Hitchcock thought that actors were some of God's dumbest creatures. He obviously never met any of the writers, producers, or director of this film.