The Red and Black

Issue date: 9/30/97 Section: Undefined Section

Give "Peace" a chance. "The Peacemaker," the much- anticipated debut film from Dreamworks Studios, hits the ground running, leaving any and all artistic merit in the dust. But who really cares? "The Peacemaker" is meant to be mindless fun, not to win Oscars, "two thumbs up" or acclaim at some snobby film festival. It's meant to take your mind away from the 9 to 5 and send you on an impossible mission from one corner of the globe to the other. It's meant to do that, and it does with disarm- ing success. An extended, slightly confusing set up covers the film's first 15 minutes, showing a member of the Bosnian parliament being assassi- nated and 10 nuclear warheads being stolen. Minutes later, a train carrying the nukes crashes and one goes off, turning everything within miles to ash. Does it make complete sense? Nah, but once again, who really cares? In the land of make-believe, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tom Devoe (George Clooney) cares a whole lot, because he's the hero and he has to. And Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman), the head of the U.S. Nuclear Smuggling Group (good guys, apparently), also wants to get to the bottom of everything. She teams up with Devoe and fig- ures out the explosion wasn't an accident, but a terrorist act. The trouble is, no terrorist has come forth with ransom or reason. Devoe and Kelly, both with con- nections in multiple countries, head to Austria to retrieve the war- heads. The only inkling of charac- terization comes in these scenes, particularly a juicy bit that shows Julia meekly give up on a possible lead while Devoe smashes a guy's face to pieces (so he's a "Piecemaker"?) to get some answers. And in a great car chase that follows, Devoe shows a no- holds-barred attitude while prov- ing that, at least in the movies, a Mercedes is a helluva lot tougher than three BMWs. Devoe, not your standard P.C. action hero, breathes life into Clooney's action-hero status, which suffered a mighty blow after June's "Batman and Robin." Clooney doesn't look half as embarrassed to speak the dialogue here, and for good reason - the script gives him a bit more to chew on. A fantastic setpiece on a bridge proves Clooney is first-rate, and the actor does a fine job making us believe he's a vengeful bad-ass. When a close friend is killed, Devoe doesn't back off and simply arrest the murderer. Devoe storms over to the defenseless bad guy's already crippled body and coldly pumps two bullets into his chest. You're forced to like the guy immediately. Possibly the most surprising thing about the testosterone-laden "Peacemaker" is that its director is not only a first-timer, but also a woman. Mimi Leder, who has honed her skills with Clooney on TV's "ER," shows as much finesse as her male counterparts. And it's especially nice that she fought stereotype by realizing there wasn't any room for romance in this flick. Leder also deserves credit for including only one climax in her action film, which can't be said for other recent entries into the genre ("Face/Off," "Con Air," "Speed 2," etc.). The ending, a chase through the New York streets (which looks like it must have completely shut down Manhattan to film) is as adrenaline-pumping as anything else this year. Yeah, it's silly, and yes, it's a bit far-fetched. The primary draw of "The Peacemaker," however, was summed up by a guy sitting behind me when the final credits rolled. He turned to his girlfriend and said, "I feel like I just jumped out of a plane. My adrenaline is going crazy." She, along with everybody else near, knew exactly what he was talking about. "The Peacemaker" made us all want to raise a little hell.

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