A Brilliant Conflict

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I first watched this presentation on TV in 1984 - I'm thinking it was aired in Canada first before it was shown on HBO in October. At the time I could only appreciate it as a film about nuclear war; some thirty years later, however, I've come to appreciate it as an extraordinary masterwork of television drama. Patrick Watson, a well-known broadcaster in Canada, does a superb and almost surreal job straddling the line between actor and anchor, bringing a gravitas to Don Tobin to rival any U.S. news anchor on the air in 1983-4. Helen Shaver is perfect as the world-weary Dorian Waldorf, whose one shot at preventing the crisis from escalating and at boosting her profile as a journalist is blown by the tardiness of a would-be "Deep Throat". And then there's Scott Glenn: as the embedded Middle East correspondent Michael Boyle, he predates Arthur Kent's "Scud Stud" persona by a good six years and perfectly demonstrates the gritty glamour of foreign-assignment journalism during the 1980s. Any of them would have fit in on an actual news broadcast: all of them together make the presentation frighteningly realistic and compelling. The production, though certainly low-budget, was extremely tight and took full advantage of its limitations to lend verisimilitude to the scenario of a TV station's news department. It also took advantage of the format to bring in real players on the national political stage, adding a degree of depth and organic exposition to the presentation that would have made Orson Welles green with envy. The combination of tight production and a commitment to realism presents a different kind of response from that to be felt watching _Threads_ or _The Day After_: instead of the predictable horror of the result of nuclear annihilation, we have instead the gut-churning, half-in- the-mind terror of the unknown but inevitable. There's the glimmer of hope extinguished halfway through the program as the one piece of data that could provoke cooler heads to prevail is rejected for broadcast. Later, there is the confirmation of a nuclear exchange taking place, without showing, or the need to show, more than a flash of light and a garbled image in static of what might be interpreted as a mushroom cloud. We are so caught up in that point of no return and its implications that any technical shortcomings in its exposition are utterly absolved. The ending of that report, and what follows, fill viewers with a dread and terror that lingers long after the end of the program - most of it created in the imagination of the viewer.

Very uneven, but ultimately effective tale of the build up to a nuclear showdown between the US and USSR, told almost entirely by news reports, using real life commentators like Newt Gingrich, Eugene McCarthy and Eric Severied. The problem is when the film 'breaks character' to get into the personal lives of Michael Murphy as a government official and Helen Shaver as a reporter. Not only do these (few) scenes feel clunky, melodramatic, and not well written, but they interrupt the whole style and flow of the film, without adding much. Also, some of the 'news' interviews are frustratingly short – if you're going to go to the trouble to get such interesting real people to play along, why not give them time for more in depth thoughts? Last, the 'War of the Worlds' type disclaimer at the top of the show isn't great, since it sort of gives away the ending. But all that said, this is still mostly chilling, thought provoking stuff. Similar to, if not quite as effect as the great 'Special Bulletin'.

When it was broadcasted I was surfing through channels and came upon it. I thought it was real! It had me hypnotised into actually believing it. Just like when "War of the Worlds" was initially shown. I would like to buy a copy of this movie but have not found it online. Is it available for purchase?

There were Threads, Day After, By Dawn's Early Light, plus more but I say this movie was the most believable nuclear war starting theory ever made. Never a dull moment in the movie and good acting throughout. A must have and see. A very scary movie - haunted me for days thereafter.