Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

lbhalos17 Aside from the acting, this is a laughable movie on just about every level.The President (un-elected) overrides every fail-safe, in spite of being advised otherwise including the legality of taking such action, to drop an atomic bomb on Iraq.The President finds himself in a diner, trying to negotiate with the Iraqi leaders while using an interpreter who hasn't been properly trained or vetted. He takes time to ask the opinions of people in the diner as time runs-out.At one point, the cook in the diner pulls-out his shotgun (which wasn't discovered by the weapons- search conducted by the Presidents' Secret Service detail of two) and shoots the Airman carrying the "football," injuring him. As he continues to point it at the wounded Airman, the two Secret Service agents allow him to fire a second round before ending his threat (with a now-empty double-barrel shotgun).The ending is just dumbfounding... Apparently the President, along with the French President, are the only two who KNOW that the weapons they sold to Iraq are dummies and won't arm. This is played-out as a great winning scheme by the President, as he nukes Iraq while watching their dummies fall fairly harmlessly in neighboring countries.I think this could've been a very good movie, had it been based more on fact than just the silly twist at the end. The bottom-line is that the President NEVER needed to drop a nuke on Iraq; he KNEW they were mostly defenseless. The world would probably stand behind a President who called their bluff. Then, they could easily be dealt with conventionally.

andy_otter Usually when watching a film, you have a sense of what it's TRYING to achieve.So cue stock footage and sound clips of previous presidents, set scene in diner cut of from contact with world. Expect mounting claustrophobia, pressure to make decisions without full knowledge of situations, interplay between personalities in a pressure cooker environment.Here decisions are made at a drop of a hat, interplay is reduced to "I must register my disagreement, Sir" and pressure is at a near climax when the waitress interrupts to refill the coffee.This film starts sounding like a dove, flaps like a hawk but then wanders off like a turkey!

agreene73 I don't normally write comments on IMDb, but after reading some very negative comments about this movie I feel I have to chime in add my own opinion. This is an excellent film. I highly recommend it to any fan of tense, intelligent drama.One, it confirms to the intelligent viewer the same message as does other great films like Clerks, Conspiracy, or Six Degrees of Separation (to name a view in this vein): great film is about drama and that is it. Good drama is not about special effects, choreographed fight scenes, A-list Hollywood celebrities, or even tear-wrenching Oscar-nominated performances.Good film is about the inter-play between different people, with different motivations, from different walks of life, thrust into a conflict situation. It gives us insight into how factors like knowledge, responsibility, and conflict, changes people.Here is a warning. This is a low budget film. It is shot in a single location, a diner where the president of the United States and his entourage have had to seek refuge from a sudden winter storm in Colorado. From here he has to resolve a major world crisis, in plain view of other civilians who are also stuck in this diner.I agree with other posters' comments that the interaction between the president and these other diners throughout the crisis is fairly implausible, but it does make for very interesting dialogue. However, it is this interaction which makes the film interesting. The same gobal conflict resolved from the White House would only be half as interesting from a humanistic and dramatic point of view.This film drives home one point very well. People in great positions of power are human beings like everyone else, only they are privilege to certain information, and are burdened with responsibility. Every person on earth has (or should have) an opinion on whether or not a nuclear weapon should ever actually be dropped, but ultimately this inhumanly difficult decisions falls on the shoulders one person, a person who has his own life, his own private successes and failures, and who's background may have in no way prepared him to make this decision. (Kevin Pollack's excellently played president was not elected into office, but succeeded into office as vice president.) So for those of you who complained about this film's low budget and technical inaccuracies, please go back to your Mission Impossible 2s, your Charlie's Angels, and your Jean Claude Van Damme. You won't be missed. You are the bigoted truck driver played by Sean Astin who gets so elegantly dismissed by the president (funniest moment in the movie).

t-mieczkowski Today, this film feels incredibly untimely due to 9/11. This movie was however made in the Lewinsky-stained days of the 90's. Regardless of the filmmaker's original intent, this film can be viewed as a pseudo-Bradburyian peek into the psyche of the Presidency. A hard-line political drama, few films compare to what it attempts (but largely fails at). It at times seems overwhelmingly unbelievable, but one needs to remember that these are events that even today would have taken place in an alternate dimension -- an alternate future. With that in mind, I recommend all those following US foreign policy to take a look at this film. It is by no means fantastic, but it at least provides those with some knowledge of the American political system some entertainment on slow news days.