Watch World War Three For Free

Such a frustrating disappointment

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

I popped down to see a couple of friends Danny and Sarah - a short time ago. I did mention to my hostess Sarah that if she ever wanted to terrify herself she should look up astrophysics on the internet and see what horrors the Universe has in store for this tiny speck of a planet. Things like gamma ray bursts and asteroid strikes. Sarah replied that she'd hope she die very quickly in those events which is probably the best anyone can hope for. Considering that my hosts are like most most of my friends half my age I went in to morbid nostalgia mode where as a teenager in the 1980s the youth of today don't know how lucky they are compared to then. There was constant films and documentaries made about thermal-nuclear conflict and the old cliché of "The lucky ones died first" and the world has changed beyond all recognition with Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) no longer a constant threat. This mockumentary from 1998 is a scary reminder of what might have been !!!!SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!! The premise is something you've seen before. In 1989 liberal reformer in the Soviet Union ( Gorbachev) is overthrown and a hardline communist (Soshkin) leads the Politburo. Civil unrest in East Germany reaches crisis point and the Red Army brutally quells the protests. Within a few months tensions escalate between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In February 1990 the first shots are fired in the North Atlantic as the Soviets impose a blockade against sea-lanes. Two weeks later the Soviets invade West Germany . Making slow headway Warsaw Pact forces manage to penetrate 50 miles but are then quickly pushed back as NATO technology and superior mobility wins through. By the end of the month NATO have reached Berlin and both sides are in a dilemma as to what to do next ? What fascinated me about this speculative scenario is the conventional conflict rather than what might come next. Since this was produced in 1998 there's both more information available due to post cold war declassification and what is known about Soviet tactics and equipment. No one was saying it out loud at the time but Western analysts in the 1980s considered the Soviets unbeatable due their massive manpower and the fact that no matter how bloody a war is they don't have to answer to an electorate. The ill fated escapade in Afghanistan and the later Russian debacle against the Chechens showed the myth of Soviet power as being what it was - a myth. Add to this well trained Western forces against larger Arab armies equipped with Soviet material in various Israeli-Arab conflicts and two Gulf wars shows that quantity isn't always better than quality The mockumentary uses extensive newsreel footage that you can often recognise such as footage from Khe Sahn in 1968 , the Falklands Conflict from 1982 and the first Gulf War in 1991. Much of the footage that you won't recognise unless you've had military experience comes from NATO training films and unless you didn't know better you'd think it was specially shot for the mockumentary . If there's a problem it's that it's yet another scenario where the Soviets are the aggressors and because of the ending all internal logic of what we've been watching has been ignored. Still it's a window on the world we used to live in during this period where as nowadays dying of boredom is more likely than being vaporized in a Nuclear attack

Wow, I was really impressed with this movie. It takes actual events, speeches & interviews then pieces them into a movie that to be honest, I really did not expect to be very good. Once it started, I had to watch the rest of it, even though I was very busy. I would pause it and come back to it. Well done! I'm surprised it's not well known. Very realistic and anyone that knows the history of the cold war can very easily see how this was a possible outcome and real threat. Thank God it didn't turn out this way. The speeches of George Bush were from the Gulf War. Which were cut and input perfectly to match a movie based in a separate region and situation. I'm impressed. Robert Stone should consider working for the government, he could easily manipulate the masses... lol.

I liked the first half a lot because I generally like such "alternative history" mocumentaries - it's not for everyone though. I agree with grimmig-1 on many points, he obviously knows what he is talking about. Of course, NATO had an overall advantage in the quality of conventional forces. But this did not matter, because NATO never had sufficient forces to stop Soviet/Warsaw Pact forces by conventional means only. Such a strategy was too expensive, especially for the Germans. A better strategy, at the least for the Europeans, was to rely on American nuclear arms to deter/stop eastern armies. And, of course, Americans have made it clear early on that they would not hesitate to use nuclear forces first... Overall, an enjoyable movie.

This fake documentary is both interesting and exciting. Who doesn't wonder how our world would look like today if the wall didn't come down in 1989? Would everything still be as it used to be? Or would the east march against the west?The documentary sets off when the tension is at it's peak in 1989 shortly before the Berlin Wall came down. A man from East Berlin escapes over the wall into West Berlin - the eastern soldier on patrol has two choices: let him escape or try to shoot him. He decides himself for shooting him, which means that he has to shoot into the West. This is like the trigger for the whole conflict.This documentary is well made, and in the typical interview and report style. It pictures our fear of that time, when we all were scared of a hot war between the two world powers. Sometimes the interviewed people can't hide a smile about the fake stuff they say, but this is barely noticeable. The background sticks closely to the true story until 1989 and the results were more than realistic at this time.