Countdown To Zero
Movie review time again this time I’m going to be looking at a documentary titled “Countdown To Zero”. This film taps into the Cold War era fear of nuclear weapons and attempts to inform the viewer on the current state of the nuclear weapons environment. This film uses a speech by John F. Kennedy in 1961 that outlines the three main ways that the doomsday clock could countdown to zero accident, miscalculation and madness as the blueprint for the film.
This film takes on a traditional documentary format with archival footage, street interviews with everyday people and a group of expert talking heads. The beginning of this film makes it seem like a miracle the world hasn’t yet already experienced a major nuclear weapons disaster. Be it through accident, the prime example from the film being when a B52 bomber flying over the US unknowingly loaded with nuclear weapons crashed and five of the six fail safes on the bombs failed. Miscalculation, the prime example from this section of the film is when the US launched a rocket to study the northern lights, Russia interpreted this as an attack but for some reason hesitated in unleashing their weapons, or finally through madness what would happen if terrorists got hold of a nuclear weapon?
In terms of visual techniques my favourite part of this film is the use of satellite images of major cities of the world overlayed with five-mile rings to constantly remind the viewer of the devastation nuclear weapons could wreak upon them.
In conclusion this film provides a good history of the build-up of nuclear weapons and makes a clear and irrefutable argument for the continued elimination of nuclear weapons, whilst good progress has been made with the number of nuclear weapons down from approximately 60,000 to 23,000 today, more needs to be done.
I give this film 3.5 out of 5.