* * * * * * * * * * * *

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/

/—

- •-•

,

Breakdown), the rapid rush via com-
puter or helicopter over lapses of plau-
sibility (lures is found in Manhattan
crowds by some sort of radiation scan
that seems dubious, but that sets up a
fine old reliable: a bomb countdown).
Even as the count hits very low dig-
its, Clooney still cracks a smile. An
Americanized Bond with a Letterman
edge, he's OK in this sort of role, but
he seems mixed like a cocktail: one
part chipper, one part flippant, a big
twist of macho (as action escalates, he
shouts, "Let's rock 'n' roll!" - a
Spielberg touch, demographically pro-
found).
After he and 99-pound Kidman
leap just ahead of the bomb blast
through the metal and stained glass of
a church window, they show up in the
next scene with their battle scars: a

Photo courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures

/—

ments missing are Miss Moneypenny,
a Max Steiner score and a cameo shot
of old Hitch.
But there is George Clooney, the
mall-plex Cary Grant (well, Jeff
Chandler), as unstoppable Lt. Col.
Devoe, the smoothest "intelligence"
brute on demolition duty for the
Army Special Forces. And Nicole
Kidman, more bristling and bird-
boned than ever, as White House anti-
terrorist dish Dr. Julia Kelly, who
could turn any think tank to thoughts
of tank tops.
Kelly sizes up Devoe as "a talented
soldier with sloppy impulse control."
They needle each other, though the
world is at stake. Or, that piece of
New York City that thinks of itself as
the world, now threatened by a
Serbian (or maybe Transylvanian) ter-
rorist so full of delicate
anguish he plays
Chopin's Nocturne in F
Minor (there is also a
mention of the painter
Tiepolo, but Clooney
shoots that down with
a crack about LeRoy
Neiman).
A long overture, full
of train smoke, shows
the theft of Russian
nuclear warheads. A
virtual Chernobyl blast
is staged as "cover"
(the hellish fireball
melts into Kelly doing laps in her
pool). Kelly goes to Crisis Control to
dish out orders, and though Devoe
makes her look a bit foolish, she takes
it well enough to go dangerously
sleuthing in Europe with him (no
mere agents are available for the job).
There is the sad end of Armin
Mueller-Stahl as a Russian officer,
Devoe's pal. Devoe almost cries, but
has already vented pain by wiping out
a Viennese market square with a car-
bashing spree that leaves the nasties
reeling. But they are still frantic to
devastate New York because ... nobody
quite knows, even the murderous mas-
termind and Chopin lover (gaunt
Romanian actor Marcel lures, who
betrays his vampire potential by flee-
ing into a church).
Not long ago, no woman would
have been given a shot at directing
such a film, but Mimi Leder has
emerged from TV to drill the required
devices without fumbling: the train
pursuits, the authenticity labels print-
ed on screen (like "Pentagon,
N.M.C.C."), the truck-dangling-on-
bridge (almost as good as the one in

f;;> .ii . ,

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to the stars and the
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Nicole Kidman and George Clooney
escape an attempt on their lives in The
Peacemaker.

nifty nick above her eyebrow, a Band-
Aid over his. She's back in the lap
pool, he has a new medal.
It all moves fast, short of sense yet
rampant with technology. The movie
is hardly more than a machine about
machines, with suffering as garnishing.
In the first DreamWorks film, we see
the works, but where is the dream?
Rated R. * *

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10/3
1997

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