Review of The Peacemaker (1997) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

This is an action/thriller film featuring themes including nuclear explosions, russia, destiny and timebombs. The first scene is a bit confusing, as it seems to show what certain people are doing but yet we've been given no real inforation as to who does what and, basically, what is going on. I tend to find this quite disorientating and obviously confusing, as is (presumably) intended. It went on for quite some time and I was sat wondering when the cliched 'good guys' would make an appearance, with only the Russians clearly appearing on screen for the first 20 minutes or so. Due to this, there's quite a lot of subtitles, which might bother some people.

Cast wise, I quite liked seeing Nicole Kidman playing a woman of some significant authority, Dr. Julia Kelly. Its always nice to see women having somewhat high ranking job roles, although at times she does get a little shrieky/squealy when things become a bit overly physical, which I didn't much like. She reminded me, obviously visually speaking, of Scully from The X Files, although I didn't really watch that show as a child as I was a bit young for it then but I remember photos so I knew roughly what she looked like!. She appears very much a lady who doesn't take any nonsense and who spits things out and gets to the point. Meanwhile, George Clooney plays lt. Colonel Thomas Devoe - he is well suited, as a character, to be teamed up with Julia, as they are both quite strong willed. He is a relatively smug and arrogant person but Julia manages to cut him down to size. They both play their performances reasonably well. Other cast members include Gary Werntz, who plays Terry Hamilton, Jim Haynie, who plays General Garnett and Carlos Gomez, who plays Santiago.

Some of the Russian accents sounded potentially a bit over exaggerated or stereotyped at times. There are some other countries or nationalities featured and which there was an element of cliche about, such as Austrian locals with their feathered hats and the like. It might be fair enough but I couldn't help but feel like this was another American film if but mildly pushing old stereotypes.

Music wise, there isn't a great amount of music featured, although when it is its fairly cliched, such as dark (sombre and gloomy) sounding pieces during tense moments. Most of the music played made me think of other spy films. It does try to add to the tension although I'm not sure I'd agree that its a terrible tense film. I didn't take it entirely seriously but I'm not entirely sure why...perhaps the fact it stars two a list celebs in the main roles has something to do with it. Don't get me wrong, there are moments which surprised me and took me aback but I couldn't say I found myself utterly gripped by it overall. Content wise, the film features one sex reference, some mild to moderate violence (mostly via gunfire) and blood is depicted, plus there are some instances of strong language and certain scenes may frighten young viewers, in terms of the elements of threat and peril. There are also one or two explosion type scenes, which may frighten people. Due to this, the film has been given a 15 rating.

The film features high speed scenes (including car chases and helicopters), which came across quite well on screen in terms of being quite watchable. I suppose it was more engrossing during those scenes but just not so much outside of those. I always appreciate a slickly filmed car chase and this film did alright on that front, so I thought I ought to mention that.

The special effects are ok but not brilliant. I probably ought to point out that this film dates from 1997, thus its at least 20 years old and so it shouldn't be expected to feature the most up to date CGI but I did still find myself feeling one or two aspects of the special effects didn't really look very realistic, or believable (also, just to clarify that where I've put 'SFX' in the disdvantages, thats just an acronym meaning special effects).

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an awful film but its not great or even especially good - it has some good elements and some cliches and it just didn't really grab me as either tense or (thus) engrossing and I personally felt rather 'meh' (i.e. one big shrug of the shoulders - what can I say?) about it overall. I liked the idea of Nicole kidmans character but some aspects of her didn't really work quite how I might have liked them to but all the same, its quite an easy watch and features some good chase scenes, so it could be both better and worse.

I wouldn't recommend this film specifically. This film is an ok watch but its neither especially good or poor. Its quite watchable and reasonably entertaining but its flawed via cliches and it looks a little dated via some of the less impressive special effects. You could do better or worse by looking for other related films but I wouldn't spend any real money going to see this particular title.