Rating: 2/5
Hooptober 7.0 | 22/32 | disease-based 2/3
TW // Death, Murder, Blood, Disease, Racism, Classism
The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus. — Joshua Lederberg, Ph. D
July 1967, Motaba River Valley, Zaire — Mercenary Camp The film imagines a deadly disease named after the Motaba River taking over a military encampment. They call in the USA for support. The US Army sends Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland) and William Ford (Morgan Freeman) to investigate. They call for an airdrop. By airdrop, they mean bomb the place to hell and hopefully eradicate the disease.
1995, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ft. Detrick, Maryland Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) works at Biosafety Level 4, where they study deadly diseases with no known cure. After a disease outbreak in Zaire, William Ford, now Brigadier General, orders Sam to investigate the hot zone before the World Health Organization gets involved.
Sam assembles his team — Lieutenant Colonel Casey Schuler (Kevin Spacey) and Major Salt (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who is new to the division. They arrive at an infected village where everyone has died. The locals believe that the disease is a punishment for the mass deforestation in their region.
Sam reports his concerns to Ford, who dismisses them on the notion that they have contained the disease. Regardless, the team takes samples and studies them. But Ford and McClintock have their own agenda.
Meanwhile, smugglers capture a white-faced capuchin and put it on a plane to the USA. Would it surprise you to know that the capuchin has the deadly disease?
The movie’s first act is gripping. It’s Hollywood bullshit, especially the bunk science, but it’s intriguing bullshit.
The movie has a weird divorce subplot. I know why movies have divorce subplots — it’s cheap character development. Throw in some dogs during the divorce, and you get some humanizing. It just isn’t necessary.
Patrick Dempsey shows up with long hair and a single cross earring if you’re into that sort of thing.
The movie’s sense of humor falls flat for me, but it’s that Marvel movie humor.
The disease spreading is funny at first. But the movie gets schmaltzier and more jingoistic by the minute, with heartwarming music as the military enforces a curfew and quarantine. Political grandstanding as higher-ups prove to their team (and the audience) that America cares about its citizens.
The real enemy is the friends we made along the way.
** SPOILER TALK ** Ford and McClintock trying to keep the disease under wraps is fine. But if you send in an expert who tries to HELP you keep it under wraps, wouldn’t you listen to him? It is asinine drama for the sake of a villain.
Of course, it’s McClintock who JUST HAS to bomb somebody and will stop any progress that prevents him from bombing. Again, it makes no sense.
The rednecks shooting at the military are hilarious.
Donald Sutherland argues why we can drop bombs on the Japanese or Vietnam but not on US citizens who pose a global danger. By US Army standards, he’s not wrong.