The Peacemaker

I am really starting to enjoy pre-9/11 action films. I mentioned in my Bourne Identity review that prior to 9/11, international spy action thrillers were starting to get a little hokey and conventional. The Peacemaker is not an over the top hokey film, but it definitely has its conventions. Are they entertaining?

The Peacemaker begins with an overly long heist of a segment where a Russian train is robed as it is going to dismantle 10 nuclear warheads. The robbery is coordinated by professionals with help from the inside and 9 of the warheads are stolen. The 10th warhead is detonated.

Now this is a pretty big deal, a nuclear bomb detonates on Russian soil... and it is a big deal... for about five minutes.

Seriously, for as long as this segment is that leads to a nuclear bomb being detonated, a lot of this segment is really kind of forgotten. The scary night vision dudes who murder everyone on the train are never seen or heard from again, the detonated nuke and the fallout from it is never mentioned again. Its just kind of there. Just interesting...

Anyways, once the overly long beginning segment is done, the movie cuts to the US where Dr. Julie Kelly (played by Nicole Kidman) is tasked with the American response to this nuclear explosion and the assistance in the recovery of the nuclear warheads that were stolen.

Of course, to counter Kidman's strong but studious female lead, she needs a military liason and that liason is Colonel Thomas Devoe (played by George Clooney).

Now, before I dig into Devoe's rank and the accuracy of the portrayal of the military in this movie, I will talk about these two as leads.

These two work well together. They create for a very good dynamic and they have their typical action Hollywood banter, but the thing I liked about this is that any chemistry or romantic inklings between these two are kept till the end of the film. They don't waste time figuring out their feelings for one another while they're trying to eliminate a terrorist threat, they start after.

The truth is, they're attractive people and they really do commit to the role.

Now... about George Clooney as a Colonel in the Special Forces. For some reason, George Clooney has never been one to make me believe that he can do action. While a part of me wants to see it and believes that he could do it, Clooney has always seemed to me like a pretty boy. It happened in Batman and Robin and it kind of happens here. I just don't really buy him as an action hero, he's too suave and has too much of a silver tongue to make me really believe that he needs to do action. And even that's a thing in this movie. Devoe's character is George Clooney, a fast talking lady killer and also a Special Forces Colonel...?

Not to mention, the movie takes a lot of liberties with how Special Forces works. I'll spare you all the military jargon but the reality is, Clooney is way too high of rank first off for his age, but also for all the action bits he gets. Colonels are pretty far removed from the battlefield and Clooney is far from removed in this film.

Furthermore, his and Kidman's role in this investigation is very poorly explained and even for people who don't know that much about these kinds of investigations, you have to wonder what authority they have.

While the plot of the bad guys in this film is interesting, the main villain is pretty generic and you don't really get to know him that well until near the end of the film.

Sure he exists within the movie before the ending, but he's just kind of biding his time while his plan is executed by other people.

He's kind of like the villains of Marvel movies these days. He'll do as a villain, he serves his purpose but you're not going to remember him an hour after the movie is done.

The main draw of this movie is the suaveness of George Clooney and the talent of Nicole Kidman. Everything else about this movie is surprisingly generic and pretty predictable.

Now maybe it wasn't that predictable when it was released in 1997, but this movie can't decide whether or not its going to be an attempt at a campy James Bond like spy thriller or if its going to be a serious crime/war thriller. Believe it or not, there is a difference. The movie has its serious war type scenes where Clooney is working with his Green Beret buddies, but at the same time there's an entire sequence where Clooney kills a bunch of guys with his car.

But the real issue with this movie isn't the identity crisis its having, its more that its so by the numbers. Like I said, its very predictable. It has the same action cliches that you've seen in hundreds of movies like it and you will see more movies that have the same action cliches.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot about this movie that is pretty fun. But to give you an idea of how predictable this movie, they have a countdown where a bomb is about to go off and they're not sure which wire to cut.

Now this would be different if this movie was looking to be more than it is, or trying to be smarter than it is but its not. Its just a generic action movie with two good looking leads who aren't developed past their generic selfs.

I wish I had more to say about this movie. Its like this movie was trying to be like the Jack Ryan Tom Clancy movies with Harrison Ford. The problem is, while those are actually pretty fun and have the signature of being a Tom Clancy movie, this movie is just kind of vanilla. It still has its moments but its nothing worth going out of your way to check out. Kind of a movie that you watch if you're bored and your in the mood for some kind of generic action. Nothing spectacular but its not horrible.

But those are my (brief) thoughts on The Peacemaker. Comment and Discuss your own thoughts on the movie in the section below. You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24. I'll read your thoughts there and accept your requests for future reviews. I will make your requests priority. If you follow me, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. I might have left this video on a post before, but this movie is so cliched that it reminded me of the Jimmy Kimmel trailer for Movie: The Movie. Enjoy!