Taglines: Every nuclear device in the world will be accounted for… Except one.
The Peacemaker movie storyline. Macho maverick field colonel Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) and White House nuclear expert Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) team up to save Manhattan from a crazed terrorist who is threatening to blow up Manhattan with one of nine stolen Russian nuclear warheads unless the world pays more attention to the plight of people in Bosnia.
First time feature film director Mimi Leder uses her experince helming episodes of the fast-paced NBC medical drama ER to create nonstop action sequences that begin with a train wreck and a nuclear explosion and do not end until the protagonists have chased their quarry around the world. The story’s exciting climax occurs on the streets of East Manhattan.
The Peacemaker is a 1997 American action-political thriller film starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman and directed by Mimi Leder. It was the first film released by DreamWorks. While the story takes place all over the world, it was shot primarily in the Republic of Macedonia, with some sequences filmed in New York City, Philadelphia, and Bratislava.
About the Story
In an Eastern Orthodox church in Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an unidentified man (later revealed to be a Bosnian diplomat to the UN) is murdered after being paged to meet someone outside. At a missile base in Russia, SS-18 ICBMs are being decommissioned. Ten nuclear warheads are loaded onto a train and sent to a separate site for dismantling.
However, Russian General Aleksandr Kodoroff, along with a rogue tactical unit, kills the soldiers on board the transport train and transfers nine of the warheads to another train. Kodoroff then activates the timer on the remaining warhead and sends the transport on a collision course with a passenger train. Minutes later, the 500-kiloton warhead detonates, killing the survivors and delaying an investigation.
The detonation immediately attracts the attention of the U.S. government. White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly believes that Chechen terrorists are behind the incident. U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Devoe interrupts her briefing to suggest that the crash and detonation were staged to hide the hijacking of the other warheads. A call to Devoe’s long-time friend and Russian counterpart, Dimitri Vertikoff, adds credence to his hypothesis and he is assigned as Dr. Kelly’s military liaison.
Kelly and Devoe try to track the terrorists through an Austrian trucking company which is a front for the Russian Mafia. When the Mafia realizes they are U.S. government agents, they send thugs to kill them. Vertikoff, attempting to pay them off, is killed. Devoe kills most of the would-be assassins, and he and Kelly escape. Information from the trucking company shows that the nukes are bound for Iran. Spy satellites place the truck in a traffic jam in Dagestan, and Devoe uses a ruse to identify it. The satellite, tracking in real time, is able to verify its license plate.
Stopped at a checkpoint, Kodoroff and his men kill the guards. Devoe then leads a special forces unit to stop them. Denied entry into Russian airspace, one of the helicopters is shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile battery, but the remaining helicopters are able to locate the truck carrying the warheads. A gunfight ensues in which Kodoroff is killed and the warheads are seized. Interrogation of the surviving member of the group reveals that one warhead was taken by another man.
The Peacemaker (1997)
Directed by: Mimi Leder
Starring: George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Marcel Iures, Aleksandr Baluev, Rene Medvesek, Gary Werntz, Jim Haynie, Slavko Juraga, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Joan Copeland, Tamara Tunie
Screenplay by: Michael Schiffer
Production Design by: Leslie Dilley
Cinematography by: Dietrich Lohmann
Film Editing by: David Rosenbloom
Costume Design by: Shelley Komarov
Set Decoration by: Rosemary Brandenburg, Constantin Nikolic
Music by: Hans Zimmer
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and some language.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: September 26, 1997
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