Post by StevePulaski on May 3, 2017 23:06:50 GMT -5
Deterrence (1999)
Directed by: Rod Lurie
Directed by: Rod Lurie
Kevin Pollak.
Rating: ★★★
NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Don Shanahan for "Steve Pulaski Sees It," a month where I watch twenty-five films requested by friends, fans, and readers.
On the eve of the 2008 presidential election, President Walter Emerson (Kevin Pollak) - the former vice president appointed following the death of the previous president - is finishing up a campaign tour as a last ditch effort to raise his poll numbers against, yes, Donald Trump, when a blizzard strands him in a remote Colorado town. Him and several officials decide to set up camp at a largely empty diner on the outskirts of town where ordinary commoners populate the restaurant. It's as ordinary of a setting as you could produce.
However, word circulates to Emerson that Uday Hussein, the leader of Iraq, has invaded Kuwait, prompting the President to go live on national television from the diner not only to address the matter but to send a calm and collected warning to Hussein. Emerson states that failure to surrender and cease invasion of Kuwait would result in a nuclear bombing of Baghdad as both a domestic warning to Iraq and a global warning to others that America will not stand idly at the threat of territorial invasions.
Hussein doesn't take Emerson nor his warnings seriously for several reasons. For one, Emerson is a non-elected official, granted power by a rule stemmed from one of thousand "what if" questions regarding situations that could affect American policy and governmental operations. More significantly, however, Emerson is also a Jew, making any rash decisions regarding the Middle East up for public debate regarding their potentially personal motivations. Hussein threatens launching missiles near his location should any harm come to Baghdad or its people.
In the meantime, the diner's patrons and employees sit by passively but nervously. Emerson gathers their opinions, most of which politically neutral or very vaguely partisan, as their primary concerns function outside the political sphere and rest on more personal matters, such as how they plan to pay their bills and go about living their lives without the strength of the iron fist. Emerson gauges the thoughts of a young, surly bigot (Sean Astin of all actors) and the diner's cantankerous owner Harvey (Badja Djola), who has built his business but still finds happiness or even simple satisfaction to be an unobtainable goal.
Deterrence is a compelling nail-biter, which theoretically could've been set anywhere - even in the situation room of the White House - and maybe still been mostly effective. Its sole location being an average diner in a sub-thousand person, working class town, however, gives rise to the kind of humanism I crave in films, especially those that involve politics. Politics and economics do a fine job at getting caught up in generalities and broadstrokes, so for writer/director Rod Lurie (The Contender, The Last Castle) to forgo the easy route and keep Emerson and company out of a more formal, closed-door setting is a strong advantage that, I'd argue, largely makes the film succeed as well as it does.
Kevin Pollak is also very good here, good enough to make you wish that his career transcended almost exclusively supporting roles. He has a casual, everyman presence to his role, one that doesn't make the president seem like an inhuman robot nor makes him seem too lax and unlikely qualified for the position he currently holds. Pollak's mannerisms remain constant here, much like his demeanor in other films. Rather than Lurie drawing him as a character that gets progressively more unhinged and frantic, he keeps the bloodline of his picture poised and believable. This is perhaps a sign of Lurie's former life as a film critic, taking cues from films where characters get less likable or less convincing as they reveal themselves.
Deterrence probably shouldn't work as well as it does. Even in some of its tenser moments, it still feels like we're watching a comedy-drama based on the event. But between Pollak's convincing performance and Lurie's desire to inject human interest in the picture, suspense winds up brewing quite naturally in the final act. Most specifically, chills set in when Emerson calmly but firmly talks to a couple with a newborn baby as they nervously confront the future if their president does decide to bomb Baghdad. Deterrence ultimately shows what happens when you take the time to write your characters and flesh them out as people, but also when you paint political power and government officials not as soullessly as you might be tempted to.
Starring: Kevin Pollak, Timothy Hutton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sean Astin, Clotilde Courau, and Badja Djola. Directed by: Rod Lurie.