Countdown to Zero (2010) - Movie Review
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Review by Nathan Samdahl (B-)
Countdown to Zero, the documentary by filmmaker Lucy Walker, traces the history of the most destructive singular invention in human history, the nuclear bomb. The film also stresses the importance of working towards complete nuclear disarmament and the many ups and downs that have occurred en route to achieving this lofty goal.
Walker paints a pretty dreary picture of the nuclear situation including several stories involving simple lapses in communication that almost lead to nuclear global disasters. Countdown to Zero's most horrifying sequence actually shows the steps that occur when a nuclear bomb is detonated. Even the most hardened individuals couldn't find much upside to the use of such weapons.
The documentary's concept certainly drives the film forward as opposed to its style, which falls a few steps above a typical History Channel documentary (and since it will be distributed on TV on History Channel I guess that makes sense). But compared to a documentary that exudes style such as Man on Wire, Countdown to Zero did not engage me on nearly the same level.
The topic of nuclear disarmament is certainly one of the most relevant and important to explore. Countdown to Zero makes clear its message of Global Zero, which strives for a nuclear weapon-free world, and is a solidly constructed documentary, but I would probably not go out of my way to see this in the theater (and most of you won't need to since it should be coming to a History Channel near you shortly).
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IRideRed says:
August 22, 2010No surprise the new 'Countdown to Zero' disarmament documentary omits life-saving strategies from their agenda of banning nukes, like advocating public Civil Defense, to try and better survive nukes in the meantime. The disarmament movement for decades has hyped that with nukes; all will die or it will be so bad you'll wish you had. Most have bought into it, now thinking it futile, bordering on lunacy, to try to learn how to survive a nuclear blast and radioactive fallout. In a tragic irony, the disarmament movement has rendered millions of American families even more vulnerable to perishing from nukes in the future. For instance, most now ridicule 'duck & cover', but for the vast majority, not right at 'ground zero' and already gone, the blast wave will be delayed in arriving after the flash, like lightening & thunder, anywhere from a fraction of a second up to 20 seconds, or more.
Today, without 'duck & cover' training, everyone at work, home, and your children at school, will impulsively rush to the nearest windows to see what that 'bright flash' was, just-in-time to be shredded by the glass imploding inward from that delayed blast wave. They'd never been taught that even in the open, just laying flat, reduces by eight-fold the chances of being hit by debris from that brief, 3-second, tornado strength blast.
Then, later, before the radioactive fallout can hurt them, most downwind won't know to move perpendicular away from the drift of the fallout to get out from under it before it even arrives. And, for those who can't evacuate in time, few know how quick & easy it is to throw together an expedient fallout shelter, to safely wait out the radioactive fallout as it loses 99% of its lethal intensity in the first 48 hours.
The greatest tragedy of that horrific loss of life, when nukes come to America, will be that most families had needlessly perished, out of ignorance of how easily they might have avoided becoming additional casualties, all because they were duped that it was futile to ever try to learn how to beforehand.
The disarmament movement's sincere supporters, just wanting a world safe from nukes, will discover those unintended consequences to be inconvenient truths of the worst kind.
The Good News About Nuclear Destruction! at www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm dispels those deadly myths of nuclear un-survivability, empowering American families to then better survive nukes. For as long as nukes exist, these life-saving insights are essential to every families survival!