matthewkosak Review of Countdown to Zero

Countdown to Zero (2010)

A wake-up call to action in the second nuclear age

[10/10 · 11 August 2010]

Writer/director Lucy Walker's "Countdown To Zero" is a "wake up call" in the second nuclear age. An urgent call, crafted in the film genre, for reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons around the globe. The threat has fragmented slightly to also encompass global nuclear terrorism, another risk dealt with at length in the film. It takes surprising twists, following closely upon the history and facts of the issues that have brought us the nuclear age we live in today. The film is neutral, candid, cold, "unblinking", fair and true to the intensity of the obvious threats, it builds continuously from their facts and anecdotes of the past and present, conception in Oppenheimers brain, the horrendous use of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a trail of broken treaties, missed opportunities, diffused and decentralized agendas, near misses, persistent threats of terrorism, and failed visions of the nuclear age. President's John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have both left legacies in this territory, based in their historic action taken toward reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan personally believed that we could reduce nukes during his presidency, eliminate them completely, and Russian Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and Pres. Reagan came very close to realizing the dream. JFK also believed strongly in the need to eliminate nukes, "before they eliminate us". What struck me in the film was how JFK, early on in his campaign recounted the time when he first began talking to people about nuclear disarmament, he was surprised by how many people cared deeply about the issue and if he'd known earlier (about the deep public interest), he would have made it a priority much sooner than he did. I thought it was surprising incite from the film (an aside), because it showed how public opinion more than anything, had influenced JFK's opinion on the problem and his policy. The same is true today. It's a deep, perhaps, covert lesson of the film. Which perhaps goes beyond it. And its important to keep public interest focused on this issue. Its not about scare tactics or party lines, but about keeping this issue at the top, because that's what gets work done on the problem, not only providing the incentive to our politicians to action, but the public support they need to make change. That is why I think it is so important for people to see this film, because its gotten a lot of attention in the press and the popularity of the film will, no doubt, unofficially be looked at by our political leaders as possibly one indicator, a gage, of how important this issue is to us, and not only to the people in the U.S., but also worldwide.