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Deterrence
Directed by	Rod Lurie
Produced by	Marc Frydman James Spies Maurice Leblond
Written by	Rod Lurie
Starring	Kevin Pollak Timothy Hutton Sean Astin
Music by	Larry Groupé
Cinematography	Frank Perl
Editing by	Alan Roberts
Release date(s)	1999
Running time	101 min.
Country	United States France
Language	English
IMDb profile

Deterrence is a low-budget 1999 movie by director Rod Lurie depicting fictional events about nuclear brinksmanship. The movie marks the feature directorial debut of Lurie, who was previously a prominent film critic for The New York Daily News, Premiere Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Movieline, among others.

Tagline:

• Every President has a defining moment. Walter Emerson is about to have his.

The movie opens with a series of historical clips of various United States Presidents making speeches before beginning the story. President Walter Emerson, newly elevated from the role of Vice-President by a sudden vacancy, is crossing the country on a campaign tour when a freak snowstorm traps him in a remote Colorado diner with a bunch of ordinary citizens.

Suddenly, word arrives that Uday Hussein, leader of Iraq, has invaded Kuwait. With U.S. troops already committed to other countries, specifically Korea, Emerson informs the world that unless Hussein orders an immediate retreat and surrenders himself, he will bomb Baghdad with a nuclear weapon, to the dismay of the customers in the diner. Hussein's U.N. envoy refuses to back down and cuts off the telephone talks, citing the facts that Emerson is an unelected leader and a Jew; he also threatens to fire Iraq's black-market atomic bombs at several world locations including Emerson's own, near NORAD.

It transpires that these weapons were purchased from France. Despite this, the French President appears to be cavalier in making this revelation to Emerson and his entourage, while Emerson appears to be uncritical. The sites of the missile launchers include Libya and North Korea.

Emerson seems as eager as Hussein to begin a nuclear war. He orders a B-2 bomber to cross Iraq's borders despite the threats of the Iraqi ambassador that this would constitute an act of war. In retaliation the Iraqis launch 23 nuclear I.C.B.M.s to various parts of the world, including N.O.R.A.D. in Colorado (U.S.A.), Australia, France and other targets.

Nonetheless, President Emerson appears to show little emotion. Emerson orders the dropping of a 100 megaton bomb on Baghdad in retaliation, leading to the complete destruction of the city. This order is slightly complicated by the diner's owner shooting the officer carrying the launch codes.

Once news arrives of the first Iraqi bomb landing in Athens, it transpires that all is not as it seems, because the bomb did not detonate. Neither did a device which landed in Hiroshima. The majority of the other missiles were intercepted.

The scene cuts to a short time later where the President is addressing his country. He reveals that in order to prevent the Iraqi regime from obtaining their own active nuclear devices and delivery methods by other channels, the U.S.A. sold nuclear weapons via the French to Iraq and others in the late 1990s, whilst ensuring that the devices would never be able to function properly.

It appears that this was a tactic developed over several administrations to counteract the possibility that the U.S. nuclear deterrent would be neutralized by other powers possessing nuclear weapons. This tactic will lead to a new phase of international relations showing that the U.S.A. had struck using nuclear weapons to protect their "...national security" and would do so again. This transfers the global balance of power back towards the U.S. and away from enemy countries and terrorists.

The President announces to his team that he will no longer be contesting the elections later in the year. As he leaves the diner, he advises one of a couple playing chess to "lay down the king". Another person refuses to acknowledge his presence, perhaps due to what she perceives as the meaningless loss of life by the bombing of Baghdad when he knew all along that the Iraqi missiles would be ineffective.

• Kevin Pollak as President Walter Emerson
• Sean Astin as Ralph
• Timothy Hutton as Marshall Thompson
• Sheryl Lee Ralph as Gayle Redford
• Clotilde Courau as Katie
• Badja Djola as Harvey
• Mark Thompson as Gerald Irvin
• Michael Mantell as Taylor Woods
• Kathryn Morris as Lizzie Woods
• Ryan Cutrona as Agent Dexter
• Joe McCrackin as Agent Williams
• Scoot Powell as Noah
• J. Scott Shonka as Captain Coddington
• Rigg Kennedy as Howard

• IMDb page for Deterrence
• official homepage