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I’m not sure if this counts as a "rush out and see it" recommendation, but the scary, gripping new documentary "Countdown To Zero" makes old terrors radioactively new again. Lucy Walker, the director of this look at the still "clear and present danger" of nuclear weapons, has her finger on the ultimate hot-button topic, and she doesn’t let go. The film features spine-tingling descriptions of the moments we risked toppling into a nuclear conflagration.
Not just the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis is covered. The film looks at lesser-known incidents in 1977 and even 1995, when a wayward American missile resulted in the Russian nuclear football being opened and placed, for the first time, in front of Boris Yeltsin. The former Russian president had five minutes to decide whether to respond with a full-on counterattack. Fortunately, the film informs us, Yeltsin wasn’t drunk.
Then, of course, there’s the nightmare of our era -- rogue nuclear terrorism. "Countdown To Zero" vividly illustrates how easy it is to buy enriched uranium on the black market. By the time that Walker sets up a hypothetical "what would a bomb blast do to New York" sequence, the movie comes close to turning into nuclear-anxiety porn.
I would condemn it on that score, if it weren’t for the fact that "Countdown To Zero" is scrupulously full of nuts-and-bolts evidence. It can’t be accused of creating fear in a vacuum.
"Countdown To Zero" doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but the movie is so sharp in its excavation of up-to-the-minute nuclear terrors that it’s the rare piece of political filmmaking that could unite the left and the right. It makes getting rid of nuclear weapons seem less a “cause,” than an imperative.
"Countdown To Zero" is in theaters now.
