|
|
 |
Fail Safe (2000)
R1 - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (8th July 2007). |
|
The Film
 The term “live television” is now considered as a thing from the past, when it comes to fiction and feature films. American actor George Clooney doesn´t seem to think so, though. His passion for live TV has already produced one acclaimed film (“Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)”) and one episode ("Ambush” from “Season 4 (1997–1998)”) of his TV-series “ER” was made live from the studio. He also acted and served as an executive producer in “Fail Safe” (produced through his “Maysville Pictures”, in association with Warner Bros. Television), which was broadcast live on 9 April 2000 in CBS Television Network. It was the first feature film broadcast live on the channel in 39 years and it took two “Emmy Awards” in that year. The film is a remake of Sidney Lumet´s “Fail-Safe (1964)” and is directed by Stephen Frears (e.g. “The Hit (1984)” and “The Queen (2006)”), aided by Martin Pasetta (live broadcast director). The film is introduced by the legendary journalist Walter Cronkite. “Fail Safe” is set in the “Cold War” somewhere around the 1960s, when the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union is at its peak. The story is divided into five different acts. “Act 1” takes us to the United States war room, where Congressman Raskob (Sam Elliott) and engineer Gordon Knapp (James Cromwell), along with the military personnel General Bogan (Brian Dennehy) and Colonel Cascio (John Diehl) are monitoring a situation where the American bomber groups (each containing two 20 megaton nuclear bombs) are ordered to face an unknown object that is spotted on the radar. This is just a normal procedure. The possible threat ends up being a false alarm and the planes are ordered back. Except one. Due to a technical, computer related, malfunction, “Group 6” - led by Colonel Jack Grady (George Clooney) and his aid Lieutenant Jimmy Pierce (Don Cheadle) - are receiving a secret, special code: Attack Moscow. Since the Soviets are jamming the radio transmissions, the connection between the war room and Col. Grady is nonexistent and all the commanders are ordered to ignore any messages anyway (since they could be from the enemy). President (Richard Dreyfuss) is alerted and options are put on the table. Shooting the planes down seems to be the only logical, yet tragic, choice and the direct line with the Soviets must be put in effect. Severe crisis is now reality. The young translator Buck (Noah Wyle) will have the nerve-wrecking task to help the President by listening to the Soviets through the telephone. Things are also heating up both in the war room and also in the Pentagon, where the warmonger Professor Groeteschele Hank Azaria is talking about a full scale attack on the Soviet Union. At the same time, Brigadier General Warren “Blackie” Black Harvey Keitel is against the war. Like in the real world, there are “hawks” and “doves”; people who feel that war is the answer and the people who don´t believe diplomacy. Time is running out, since every minute and every hour, “Group 6” is closing onto its target. Every minute and every hour, the nuclear war is getting closer. If that happens, so is the end of humanity as we know it. Can two superpowers unite and stop the threat together? Or is it already too late? “Fail Safe” is an exceptionally good TV-movie and also a success, when you consider that it´s captured live from start to finish. The black & white cinematography by John A. Alonzo (one of his final works) is quite perfect for the film and even when the sets are occasionally somewhat stripped (and the radar looks like a old videogame), they blend in effectively. The narrative is tight, focused and gripping and the final act is a truly fine moment of TV history. The last images stay with you for a long time. It´s of course true that some scenes do look more staged than they would be in the proper feature film and the editing pace is slower when done live. You could see that in some scenes the actors are almost too concentrated, since they probably had so many things on their mind at once - there were no re-takes or breaks. Still, among the fascinating story the actors are the bread & butter of the film, even when there are no real superstars (if you don´t count Clooney). Plenty of familiar actors are on board nevertheless. Even when the story is set in the era that is now gone, “Fail Safe” is a chilling reminder of the nuclear threat that never truly goes away, most likely as long as we live. In some ways, the most shocking part comes before the end credits, when the list of countries with nuclear capacity is listed: US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Now that´s is actually quite scary.
Video
The transfer is presented in 1.78:1, but is sadly non-Anamorphic. It´s hard to say why the film is released only now in the R1 area, considering that e.g. the UK-version was released already in 2000. Both probably come from the same (non-Anamorphic) source, which is occasionally slightly “fuzzy” and has some softness, along with some line shimmering. The film was originally shot on HD. Apart from the lack of Anamorphic-transfer, nothing is significantly wrong and the transfer is clean and the blacks are deep. “Single layer” disc is coded for “R1”, “R2”, “R3” and “R4” and runs 84:21 minutes (NTSC). There are 25 chapters.
Audio
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (back cover says “Mono”) is the only audio choice. There are no subtitles, but English Closed Captions are included. Due to the fact that this is a live feature, the audio is not as tweaked and polished (you have some clear ambient noise and such). Dialogue is still clear and the audio is probably quite faithful to the original TV-presentation. With “Pro Logic”, also the dialogue moves to the rear-channels and generally doesn´t sound natural, so “Stereo” is the way to go with this one.
Extras
Major disappointment, since the only extra is a bonus trailer for “Ocean's Thirteen (2007)” (1:36 min). What happened?
Overall
Excellent TV-adaptation of the acclaimed novel and the classic film, that is at the same time entertaining, but yet the scary, fictional “history lesson” for all of us. The DVD presentation is eventually a disappointment, since the lack of Anamorphic-transfer and extras are not what you´ve used to expect from the company. For more info, please visit the homepage of Warner Brothers.
|
|||||
|