Review of Countdown to Zero (2010) by Omar L — 08 Jan 2011

John F. Kennedy: The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

This terrifying documentary takes a look at the history of the nuclear bomb and its impact in our modern day world. A dire threat exists that many of us aren't fully aware of. In an essay style this film breaks down the threats in three very real categories of accident, miscalculation, and madness. The scariest part of the film for me wasn't the fact that terrorists are trying to get their hands on a nuke and detonate it in the US, but rather it's the more unknown threat of human error or technological error that makes my stomach turn. I almost think this should belong in the horror genre, but unfortunately this is a documentary on a very real world situation. There's only one solution, and that's disarming every single nuclear weapon in the world. From a high of 65,000 active weapons in 1985, there are now nearly 8,000 active nuclear warheads and more than 22,000 total nuclear warheads in the world in 2010. Each one is capable of taking out a major city in mere seconds. The USA and Russia are capable of launching hundreds of nukes in less than a minute with their potential destinations taking only 15 minutes to reach. The best part of this documentary is a look at history as well as interviews with several passionate experts in the matter from everybody to nuclear physicists, to world leaders like Tony Blair, to CIA experts, to criminals who've been caught selling high grade uranium. 8/10 from me.

"Every man, woman and child, lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.".