President Reagan is trying to salvage a nuclear deal with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the pressure mounts around him. Every word spoken could jeopardize the world’s peace.
Chuck says:
There’s a great deal of push and pull in Micheal Russell Gunn’s “The Brink of War,” a film that has no trouble painting a flattering picture of President Ronald Reagan. While praising the jelly-bean-eating commander-in-chief proves easy for the writer/director, avoiding a heavy-handed approach where espousing its pro-American perspective is much more difficult. To be sure, the audience the movie this is aimed at won’t object, but those looking for a more even-handed rendering of this significant historical event will be left lacking.
Gunn shows his flair for the dramatic with his opening shot of Reagan (Jeff Daniels) cast against an ominous sky, declaring to his Secretary of State George Shultz (J.K. Simmons), “I failed.” It soon becomes apparent this is the end of the historic 30-hour meeting between the president and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris), a mini-summit that was held to discuss the reduction of the nations’ combined 70,000 nuclear missile stockpile.
Gunn then takes us back to the early hours of October 11, 1986 in Reykjavik, Iceland as Reagan awaits the arrival of his counterpart. Employing a “Peace through Strength” approach, he’s aggressively increased the United States’ nuclear arsenal and has been labeled a “war monger” as a result. He hopes Gorbachev will be open to reducing each nation’s European-based missiles to zero, which would lead to a reevaluation of his image. Little does he know his counterpart will be amenable to this suggestion and much more.
What could have been a very dry history lesson proves compelling thanks to the strong performances from the two leads. While neither Daniels nor Harris resemble the men they’re playing, each masters their characters mannerisms and vocal inflections so well they collectively create a convincing illusion. More importantly, the actors’ back-and-forth is consistently engaging. Whether lobing veiled or obvious insults at each other, passionately defending their respective ideologies or finding common ground, Daniels and Harris create a compelling dynamic that brings these events to life while underscoring the vital nature of all that was at stake.
Had Gunn simply stuck to all that occurred between the two leaders and the responses of their advisors, “Brink” would have been a resounding success. Unfortunately, he feels compelled to add poorly-written and executed scenes involving the opposing security details, moments featuring Raisa Gorbachev (Branka Katic) and Nancy Reagan (Hope Davis) and woefully underdeveloped sequences featuring members of the international press corps assigned to cover the meeting. The energy of the film noticeably dissipates whenever Gunn cuts to any of these subplots, none of them adding anything vital to the story.
Also regrettable are two speeches given by Reagan to Schulz, one at the beginning of the summit, the other at its close. Both are blatant expressions of the president’s vision of America, Gunn’s intent to paint a noble portrait of his hero coming to the fore in the most obvious and ineffectual ways. Daniels plays these moments with conviction but even he can’t overcome their hagiographic nature to make them convincing.
We’re left with a sense of regret as the film comes to a close. While this meeting did not initially lead to an immediate scaling back of arms, it did lay the foundation for latter talks that proved productive. That a compromise of any consequence can be reached by today’s leaders seems impossible. And while “Brink” focuses on a summit that was initially deemed a failure, its portrayal of two well-intended, intelligent men striving to create a better world for those they represent, seems like an antiquated notion, we’ll likely seldom see again.
2 1/2 Stars
