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A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Three years before this live rendition of Fail Safe, George Clooney led the ER cast (the Michael Crichton one, not the 1980s comedy one) in a live broadcast of Ambush, the fourth season opener.This is a compelling drama and one almost blooper came to mind. It was when the maid almost kind of fell down the stairs carrying the washing basket. That would have been an interesting blooper for sure. The ending was very tragic, and I wonder why New York was fingered to be the sacrificial city. Why not another city? You can imagine the President didn't even bother campaigning in New York at the following presidential election, ceding it to his opponent, and losing a significant chunk of the Electoral College vote.

The films are nearly identical in terms of plot, pacing, and scenes, but the execution is slightly different.The movie is set in the 1960's at the height of the Cold War. It's actually weird to think that there are now living adults who were born AFTER the Cold War, so I don't know if the mindset of those times can ever be known by future generations. Looking back, of course a nuclear arms race is madness, so its easy to see why a film like Failsafe catches on with certain crowds. The central theme of the film is that humanity was/is playing with fire. Nuclear weapons are a threat to all humanity and it only takes one mistake for the worst to happen. That mistake happens through a series of events, any one of which could have been corrected of prevented. What follows is a tense blow-by-blow of trying to correct those mistakes and prevent even worse tragedies from occurring. This is told from the point of views of a bomber crew, the men at NORAD, the Pentagon, and the President. All the actors do a good job in their roles; there are no villains in the film. Everyone has justifiable reasons for their actions.My complaints are that the role of the doctor was either intentionally or mistakenly watered down. In the original, Walter Matthau played an incredibly smart and pragmatic expert who actually makes good points about nuclear war. I felt like the doctor in this one was made to be a farce and a punching bag for the Left Wing.Anyway, this version of the story is good, but not as good as the original. Its still full of suspense and it has that cold realism that most thriller films lack.

This live TV-movie is an update of the 1964 theatrical thriller. While not quite as good as the original, it was the first live TV drama in about 40 years. Several U.S. bombers miscommunicate due to Russian radio jamming, and mistakenly head straight for Moscow with their nuclear weapons. The rest of the film primarily takes place in Strategic Air Command headquarters and in a small room where the U.S. President and the Soviet Premier try desperately to avert a global nuclear war via telephone link.Like the 1964 movie, it's a very tense, claustrophobic film which shows just how easily a global crisis could occur due to human failing. Richard Dreyfuss as the President, George Clooney as a bomber pilot, Sam Elliott as a visiting congressman who watches the drama unfold, Harvey Keitel as a general who is trying to understand the crisis, are all great. Walter Cronkite introduces the production, which is shot beautifully in black and white.The movie has earned my respect for its daring live production, in an age in which everything is shot on videotape and all acting and directing mistakes can be easily corrected. If you're too young for truly live TV, please take time to watch this once.

I personally think this is a great movie considering it was a live broadcast...granted, the acting wasn't perfect, but it didn't really need to be. Brian Dennehy, Harvey Keitel and Richard Dreyfuss give the best performances, but that's not to say anything about the rest of this great cast. The acting is never bad...just not Oscar caliber. Although this is obviously a dated concept, and is shot in B&W to show that, the tension is still there. For the times this film is written about it is a very "real" situation. I have not seen the original so I can't say which is better (though usually originals are better) but i do suggest you watch this film and take in (as one historian spoke of it) "the texture and not the details."