5/5 Nuclear Terrorism
  by Acute Observer (North Jersey Shore)
The film begins with an Orthodox religious ceremony. One man gets a phone call and steps outside. It is a trap! Next we see a military base in Russia. They are loading packages onto a steam train. Later another train pulls alongside and masked men jump onto the first train. Silenced machine guns! "What are they doing?" We soon see a head-on train collision, then a big explosion! The US is very concerned, it wasn't an accident but a terrorist action. We see a Congressional Hearing [for comic relief]. The robbers make their getaway with nuclear devices. Dr. Julia Kelly is summoned from her swimming for her Defense Department job. We see the high-tech communications used. Any secrets left? [Cell phones allow tracing the user.] The investigation continues overseas in Europe. [Does this remind you of the `James Bond' films from the 1960s?]

Lt. Col. Tom Devoe uses his initiative and skills to get answers. The opposition tries to stop them. There are plenty of action scenes in the car chases. [Always a way to pep up a film.] The data was downloaded and analyzed on a computer to find that truck. They use satellite data to find its current location. Nuclear arms heading for Iran! We see scenes from Yugoslavia after the civil war. The decision is given to arrest that truck. But the Russians defend their border and one helicopter is lost. [The suspense continues to build.] The action scenes are as good as the best. They capture eight warheads, one is missing! Can it be brought into New York city? Arriving airplanes will be searched. They identify the suspect. Or is it a double? The search closes in, they narrowly miss him. [The film reminds us of the horror created in Yugoslavia from the policies of external powers.]

The police set up roadblocks near East 44th St., snipers are posted on tall buildings to find the suspect. Traffic is worse than usual. The trees mask the target. They miss. [Who was shot?] A friend helps his escape. The chase has exciting action. There is a final meeting in a church so a speech can be made [as in other films]. There is a race against time to disable the bomb's functioning. It works (for a happy ending).

This is a top-rate action-suspense film. It uses the strife in Eastern Europe for the background. [Do you know what caused these troubles in Yugoslavia? Was it censored in the corporate media?] There is a defined procedure for checking for any smuggle nuclear devices in an airplane. But what if the airplane doesn't land to deliver the bomb?


4/5 GOOD ROUTINE THRILLER
  by drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA)
This is not the best of breed but certainly provides an entertainingly explosive couple of hours. Clooney is suitably heroic and generally appealing; kidman does well what the role requires of her. Since I don't run a reality check on films like this, I was able to go along with the idea of an egghead leader of a presidential task force participating in the actual on the ground policing effort. Never mind, if Police Commissioner McMillan could do it, so can she. No need to point out that it is an entertainment we are watching here not a gritty documentary. Introducing then current political conflicts into the film may give it a degree of verisimilitude but does muddy the water 15 years later when most of us no longer remember which side and what issue positions we were supporting at the time. So just take it as one would a military exercise, it is the blues against the greys.
The action scenes are well done, the suspense level moderate.

3/5 Good plot, great action, no chemistry
  by Minnie Moore (Idaho)
The Peacemaker is engaging for its modern theme and great action sequences. Definitely makes one think about who's keeping us safe behind the scenes, and what they have to do that we might be shocked to know. Would have enjoyed the dialogue a lot more if there had been any chemistry at all between Clooney and Kidman. Their performances seemed mechanical, like two robots working side by side but having no sense of the other's presence. Despite that flaw, it intrigued us enough to watch it multiple times over a couple of weeks.

4/5 George Clooney's best action role (not that he's had a lot of action roles)
  by H. Bala (Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA)
In the turnstile of movie villain cliches, the nuclear terrorist seems to swing around fairly often. THE PEACEMAKER is only one more in the long line of action thrillers featuring intrepid whosoevers attempting to stave off a mushroom holocaust. Is it original? No. Is it perhaps hackneyed? I would say yes. Ah, but is it worth watching? I would also have to say, yes. There's something to be said for expert filmmaking, a suspenseful tone, action packed sequences, and bankable star power.

Plot SPOILERS will now occasionally pop up.

When a Russian train ferrying atomic warheads enroute to dismantling collides head-on with a passenger train, triggering a nuclear explosion, it doesn't take too long before the U.S. government sniffs something foul. Nuclear specialist Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman), who heads up the less-than-sexily named White House Nuclear Smuggling Group, is the first to figure out that something underhanded is in the works, that someone had deliberately set off the detonation. She promptly gets put in charge of the mess.

Dr. Kelly apprises the brass and sundry government big wigs that she'll need "a military liaison with intel background and Russian contacts." and to make sure that "he's willing to take orders from a woman." And, so, of course, the camera immediately shifts to a courtroom scene, in which George Clooney's character is the focus of a disciplinary hearing. Clooney plays Lt. Colonel Thomas Devoe, a straight-talking, maverick U.S. Army intelligence officer. It's pretty inevitable that Kelly and Devoe are soon engaging in heavy bickering. Devoe shows her up in her war room briefing. Kelly calls him a "talented soldier with sloppy impulse control." Apparently, to the filmmakers, weapons of mass destruction aren't enough fireworks for the picture.

THE PEACEMAKER, which came out in 1997, is a really well-executed film, from cinematography to editing to score. We don't see the principal actors until around 16 minutes into the movie, but even those first 16 minutes suck you in (as it details the hijacking of the train). The film is very solid with the action pieces, with the feel of the thing leaning more towards Tom Clancy than Ian Fleming. Clooney demonstrates his action chops, doing his best clenched square jaw bit in this movie. And the word is he did most of his own stunts. The Clooney mannerisms are still there, but kinda tamped down by the testosterone and this implacable edginess he this time brings to the table. I really buy him in his role of action hero with a bite.

Regarding Nicole Kidman, it just goes to show that, every once in a while, even the most accomplished actresses yearn to rest up and have fun with an undemanding part. She's basically slumming as Dr. Julia Kelly (and kicking around a mostly solid American accent), but I'm thinking there aren't that many actresses out there who can deliver the same level of intelligence and depth. Let's be honest, there really isn't anything new to the two lead characters. And yet Clooney and Kidman's sheer screen presence manages to keep your eyeballs glued to the movie. That adversarial heat they have going on between them doesn't hurt, either. Surprisingly - and I'm actually thankful for this - romance doesn't rear its beautiful head until the very end, and then it's only an inkling of the thing.

Action-wise, no complaints. THE PEACEMAKER is a well-oiled engine, hitting all the expected beats. There's foreshadowing in Dr. Kelly's statement to Devoe whilst on a plane to Vienna: "I'm not afraid of the man who wants ten nuclear warheads, Colonel. I'm terrified of the man who only wants one." Devoe and his military troops manage to wrest back all but one of the atomic warheads. As it turns out, the last half of the film is devoted to tracking down the last nuclear bomb. The movie climaxes with a frantic manhunt in New York and that old chestnut, the ticking timebomb. But, before that, there's some globe-hopping, exciting chases, Clooney mistreating a truck shipping executive, a callback to unfriendly American-Soviet relations, and Clooney taking charge and putting it down hard on punks trying to take down civilization.

The dvd's special features are kinda skimpy: Stunt Footage - basically, we're shown the stunts followed by the finished film footage on two sequences: the car chase in Vienna and Clooney jumping car to car in New York; the teaser & trailer; Cast & Crew bios; Production Notes; and the "From the Cutting Room Floor" segment - 3 minutes of interview snippets with Kidman and Director Mimi Leder, as well as several outtakes. So, yeah, skimpy.

Granted, there isn't much levity in this film, but I just had to smile when Devoe and Kelly learn that the password to access a German bad guy's computer turns out to be... "Hasselhoff." So, really, the only grouses I have are that the villain is tedious and the somber cutaways to Bosnia serve to slow down the pace. Overall, I really like this film. It works as a slam-bang action thriller and demonstrates that, even when in low brow, common denominator stuff like THE PEACEMAKER, quality will out. George Clooney and Nicole Kidman are quality; they're bullet proof, baby.

2/5 It's not thrilling to me.
  by Cestmoi
The acting is okay but the movie is not thrilling to me. The action scenes are so so. Overall, it's not interesting.