The Brink Of War: Honest and No Bias Review

Spoilers Ahead.

I saw this trailer a while back when I went to watch Young Washington, I believe. As soon as I saw this trailer I knew I had to watch this movie. I’ll be honest, I thought there would be fighting. There was no action in it. That is a spoiler but not really.

A bit of a note: this movie is written off declassified files from declassified transcripts and the recollections of former Secretary of State George Shultz (played by J.K. Simmons in this movie, by the way).

So backtracking — the wife and I saw the trailer so we decided we would watch it when it came out, and here we are. The wife and I enjoyed the movie. As we watched, certain scenes made me start to think “wait, did this really happen?” I am young and never heard about this happening, so yes it made me wonder. This also made my wife wonder if this was real, and we wanted to start looking into it right in the theater, but we knew we had to finish the movie first.

Quick Score: 7.5 I think the movie was great and had moments that made me feel like I wished it was longer and we knew more about it. Now this could have been done so that we look into the history of it ourselves.

So let’s get to the setup. This movie takes place and dramatizes the 1986 Reykjavík Summit. It takes place in Iceland, a place that is considered halfway for America and halfway for Russia — a place where either side would more or less stay neutral. Taking away any political belief about communism or capitalism, which is what this movie is clearly reminding everyone watching about. This review is to remain unbiased and just talk about what the movie did, how it presented it, and the score of course — if it’s worth the watch. This movie is 1 hour and 57 minutes by the way.

Spoilers Ahead:

We start with Reagan (played by Jeff Daniels) looking at the ocean, and then we hear “Mr. President” repeated a couple times until George Shultz (played by J.K. Simmons) walks in. Then immediately Jeff Daniels says one word is going to ruin this entire Summit and the opportunity for world peace is going to fall apart. We don’t get told what the one word is. We do find out later in the movie, so I hope you’re paying attention or you will miss it. Then George Shultz tells him that he should invite Mikhail Gorbachev to the White House. Then we go backwards 30 hours to when the movie really starts, where we see Reagan getting ready to meet Gorbachev.

In this movie we get a couple comedy scenes, like how the KGB was sitting next to the CIA in the basement of the building. They jab at each other because one of them is Communist and the other is Capitalist, and how they have to share the bathroom. This scene was a nice point of laughter. In the end they take off the signs on their bathroom — one says Russia, the other says USA — so that they learn to share the bathroom. This scene was just funny because I’m sure we don’t know if this actually did or didn’t happen.

I guess I should add that I have not read the files so I could not verify, but I’m writing this based on watching the movie and it was just a nice laugh to add in there. The whole movie is more or less tense because of the situation. We get some escapes here and there because we are put in the scenario where we know that these two men are deciding the fate of their countries and about how it could lead to an all-out nuclear war.

This movie gives us some banter from Reagan and Gorbachev, them speaking with their wives and seeing them as a moment of peace through all this tension, as we know that they have to decide the fate of their people all on this conversation that could end good or bad. The scenes are played well out to the point where you start to feel for both of them, knowing that their decisions could literally end the world. So the entire plot is based on this conversation and how it could go good or bad. I’ll end giving more spoilers than that since I could not do justice for this movie. It is one of those movies that are definitely dramatized but it makes you wonder what really happened, especially if you have never done anything else but read the files.

So let’s get to the actors.

Jeff Daniels — I will be honest, I mostly know him as a comedy actor. So when I saw he was Reagan I was already like “that’s interesting, I’ve never seen him in anything else besides a comedy movie.” I know some people are probably going to mention that then I have not seen him in specific movies where he is a serious actor, and to those people I say leave a comment so I can check them out. However for other people like myself who have not seen him in anything serious, then I got a surprise for you. Jeff Daniels nailed it. He did a phenomenal job being serious and somber in this movie. When he talks about his assassination attempt in the movie he makes you remember “oh crap, he was almost assassinated, I forgot.” Since some people did forget. He went to the negotiation table even knowing he was already almost assassinated once, so him going here it could happen again. There was a scene where he was laying in bed and has a nightmare, and that scene was him remembering the assassination attempt, and you can see he has what I would describe as night sweats but in this scenario a nap sweat. I could go on and on but Jeff Daniels killed it in this serious movie. Now if he makes anything else I am definitely ready to watch it.

Jared Harris — I have seen him in a couple of different roles already as a Russian personality or many other scenes. So when I saw that he was going to be in this movie I was actually excited since I knew that he was going to kill this role. So guess what, to no one’s surprise he killed it. A scene that he really killed was a scene where he gets upset at Reagan and I’m paraphrasing here: “You are killing our children, you won’t let us get machines to be able to get milk so that we can milk cows faster.” This scene he showed his presence and dominance in a serious but somber take. It made you feel like America was the true enemy in this scenario.

J.K. Simmons was not really in this movie a whole lot. He was more of a sideline character for portraying George Shultz. All I can say is that in the scenes where he was in he did a great job. I couldn’t say that he did anything spectacular, but he still did a solid job. This movie is also based off his point of view from what I understand and what he saw the entire time, and we were given his notes to make it.

Now for the score. There was definitely a score for this movie. There was music for scenes that needed it and it helped. However I don’t think even now as I write this that there was a specific song that I think was made for this movie or that I will remember, unlike in other movies. Again it is a dramatized movie, but Young Washington had memorable music and this movie had I think just one which is the Mammoth - Mongkut. This sound is meant to be a tense sound and it works, but it didn’t stick with me the same way.

So what worked for me in this movie. I would say the biggest thing is definitely the actors. They portrayed their people so well it made you think “wow, what is it like to be put in a position with so much at risk.” Not knowing all the answers but still having to make a decision that could be costly for the world.

What I think didn’t work was the length, or maybe it was meant to be like that. I feel maybe it was a bit short and just an extra 30 minutes could have helped it. I felt like the movie ended so quick, which is crazy to say. It is thoughtful because it brought you into their shoes, but it still felt like it wrapped up too fast.

This is why I rate this movie a 7.5. It was good, but in my unbiased opinion it could have been elevated with a soundtrack that immersed you just a bit more. I know you may think I’m a big soundtrack guy — I am — but music is something that draws you into the movie. The scenes that in my opinion did kind of pull it down a bit were the scenes with the wives. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate them, but they truly didn’t add anything to the movie. I understand that during this time the wives of Reagan and Gorbachev were more or less competing with each other. However when I’m in a movie about a main case scenario as this, they kind of took you out of the moments and it felt just flat. The scenes were not bad, but not needed.

In the end I do recommend this movie. It puts you in a place in time where billions of lives were at the fate of two men deciding that we need to reduce the nuclear warheads on our planet. That anything could and would happen if it went wrong. That and this movie gives you a glimpse of what actually could have happened and how it played out in real life. If you’re someone who likes historical dramas that make you want to look up the real events afterward, this one is worth sitting through.