Fail Safe (2000 film)
Fail Safe | |
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Warner Bros. Television | |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | April 9, 2000 |
Fail Safe is a 2000
The novel was first adapted into a 1964
Plot
In the early-to-mid-1960s, the height of the
At meetings in Omaha, the
The U.S. President orders the Air Force to send the four escort fighters after the bombers to shoot down the Vindicators. The attempt is to show that the Vindicator attack is an accident, not a full-scale nuclear assault. After using their
The U.S. President then contacts the Premier of the Soviet Union and offers assistance in attacking the group. The Soviets decline at first; later, they decide to accept the Americans' help.
Meanwhile, the Soviet PVO Strany air defense corps has managed to shoot down two of the six planes. After accepting American help they shoot down two more planes. Two bombers remain on course to Moscow. One is a decoy and carries no bombs. The other carries two 20 megaton devices. General Bogan tells Marshal Nevsky, the Soviet air defense commander, to ignore the decoy plane because it is harmless. Nevsky, who mistrusts Bogan, instead orders his Soviet aircraft to pursue the decoy aircraft. The Soviet fighters are then out of position to intercept the final U.S. bomber. The decoy's feint guarantees that the remaining bomber can successfully attack. Following the failure, Nevsky collapses.
As the bomber approaches Moscow, Colonel Grady opens up the radio to contact SAC to inform them that they are about to make the strike. As a last-minute measure, the Soviets fire a barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles to form a fireball in an attempt to knock the low-flying Vindicator out of the sky. The bomber shoots up two decoy missiles, which successfully leads the Soviet missiles high in the air and Colonel Grady's plane survives.
With the radio open, the President attempts to persuade Grady that there is no war. Grady's son also attempts to convince him. Under standing orders that such a late recall attempt must be a Soviet trick, Grady ignores them. Grady tells his crew that "We're not just walking wounded, we're
The American bomber receives an order to drop its bombs over New York in order for the destruction of Moscow to be reciprocated and a Third World War avoided. It was earlier revealed that the U.S. President's wife was in New York while the events of the film transpired, meaning she would be killed in the blast. The pilot of the American bomber, General Black, commits suicide with a lethal injection just after releasing the bombs.
New Yorkers are shown going about their lives, unaware of their imminent doom. The screen fades to white, and text appears listing the nine countries with nuclear capability as of 2000.
Cast
- Walter Cronkite as Host
- Richard Dreyfuss as The President
- Noah Wyle as Buck
- Brian Dennehy as General Bogan
- Sam Elliott as Congressman Raskob
- James Cromwell as Gordon Knapp
- John Diehl as Colonel Cascio
- Hank Azaria as Professor Groeteschele (loosely based on John von Neumann and Herman Kahn)
- Norman Lloyd as Defense Secretary Swenson
- Bill Smitrovich as General Stark
- Don Cheadle as 1st Lieutenant Jimmy Pierce
- George Clooney as Colonel Jack Grady
- Harvey Keitel as Brigadier General Warren A. Black
- Doris Belack as Mrs. Jennie Johnson
- Tommy Hinkley as Sergeant Collins
- Thom Mathews as Billy Flynn
- Cynthia Ettinger as Betty Black
- Will Rothhaar as Tom Grady (Colonel Grady's son, serving the same role in the plot as Grady's wife in the 1964 film.)
Production
The April 9, 2000 presentation was the first
See also
- List of nuclear holocaust fiction
- Nuclear weapons and the United States
- Nuclear weapons in popular culture
References
- ^ a b "CBS Live Broadcast Of Clooney's "Fail Safe" Airs April 9, 9-11 PM ET". Playbill. 2000-04-09. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
External links
- Fail Safe at IMDb
- Fail Safe at AllMovie
- Fail Safe television film trailer on YouTube