Customer Reviews

Fail Safe

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As someone who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War, this movie has always intrigued me. A truly scary premise especially now that the machines have taken over (sorry, that's a Cyberdyne joke).

This made-for-TV remake was broadcast live in 2000 and I was most impressed. I am a technical flaw-spotting fiend and I only spotted one glitch - I'll let you find it.

The plot is already explained so I'll address the cast - well chosen, and the production values - top-notch. Live TV is most unforgiving and this was pulled-off in good fashion.

Sadly this scenario has been supplanted by terrorism but nevertheless, for those who recall the truly excellent 1964 version, this modern take still manages to grip you with suspense. Once I finish this review I am ordering a copy. You should do the same.

Recreates the look and feel of live B&W television, back in the day, beautifully. As if there was a extra high quality episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents produced live in 1960. But in fact, it actually is live television. Which made it all the more impressive and interesting to me. I watched it live years ago and enjoyed it even more this time, without all the commercials. The atmosphere has a certain tension which I found to be fascinating. Bare in mind that this is nothing like a movie. It's like a stage play, but spread out over a large television studio with several separate sets. Nobody gets 19 takes to get it down perfectly. The overall effect will appeal to serious drama fans in particular I think. I can't stop myself from giving it one extra star for sheer originality. Fine performances, dialog, and pace. A unique and entertaining film. I don't know of anything else remotely like it.

When I ordered this DVD I expected a movie production. I don't know where I got that impression but when I watched the opening credits I remember feeling disappointed, cheated almost to the point of stopping the DVD. I am glad I didn't. It took a few minutes for me to adjust to the medium in which I was experiencing art. I am old enough to remember Studio 90, Hallmark Hall of Fame or even life productions of Howdy Doody and situation comedies. This DVD put me back in an art form that does not exist anymore and I miss it. I have read the book and now experienced the live television production. A classic with modern applications

This is the re-make of FailSafe starring George Clooney and Richard Dreyfuss. I am always going to go back to the original FailSafe starring Henry Fonda but the re-make is more than good and Clooney and Dreyfus shine, the story is again in black and white and pretty much holds to the original film. If you liked the original FailSafe then you will like this re-make.

Good remake. I think what's remarkable about this version is that it was done LIVE twice on the same day (once each for the West Coast & East Coast). What really would have been COOL, Attention WARNER BROS HOME VIDEO, is if BOTH perforamnces would have been put on the DVD. In fact, I would have gladly paid more for a 2 DVD set containing BOTH performances. Warners, please reissue this DVD, and include BOTH performances of Failsafe. Thank you. P.S. Failsafe made it to T.V. in 2000, months before 9/11. Had the airing been scheduled after 9/11, it never would have made it to T.V. The dialog regarding New York would have been deemed way to harsh, and I would have agreed with this.

Having been a fan of the original 1964 movie, I was a little leery of this production but decided to order it anyway. Good decision! In many ways, it is even better than the original film. Shot in black and white, it is a real throw back to the early days of live television productions. I found it very riveting. The dialogue and plot are the same as the movie for the most part. This particular production was televised in 2000, a full year before 911. The story is still set in the 1960's and holds even after all this time. I would urge anyone to give this production a viewing. Very thought provoking.

Stephen Frears takes us deep into the past to address a problem we live today with extreme intensity : the possibility of a nuclear war. He goes back to the Cold War to envisage the situation of such a nuclear conflict between two countries who have the same technological and technical possibilities : the capability to destroy a whole city with two bombs, the capability to get the bombs there no matter what and the protocole for the pilots never to come back once the order is given. This kamikaze situation created by our own protocoles is absurd and demonstrated as such : if a technical mistake causes this situation there is absolutely no way to stop it, what's more to reverse it. It also raises the question of why and how we - the civilized West - have invented such protocoles that transform our pilots into suicide-bombers, and also how and why human beings can accept such protocoles that transform them into non-thinking machines. The film shows that there is absolutely no escape from nuclear destruction when it is started. It also shows that some supposedly technical or learned minds are using the logic of a traditional war within the frame of nucelar warfare, which is absurd because there cannot be any victor in such a war. The film very clearly shows that the point is to avoid the full confrontation and that this can only be achieved by accepting as much damage on the side responsible for the alert as this side will have caused on the other side. New York to pay off Moscow. This film is also interesting to show how perverse such power, the power to start such a war, is : it transforms human beings into monsters that will remain human if they can avoid the full destruction of the planet by accepting a limited destruction of a few cities. What an achievement indeed. From human being to human monster, from peace and love to let's kill just enough people to guarantee that all will not be killed. War seen as a blood sucker sucking just the right amount of blood for you not to die of apoplexy. Absurd and yet so human indeed : the human race is the only animal race that has invented and uses the logic of absurdity.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne

This adaptation of Fail Safe is disappointing. With a terrific story and a number of very fine cast members, it's hard to know why this has fallen flat on its face. Perhaps it was due to the live television format in which it was broadcast in 2000 (not really done since the late 50's and early 60's.)

Perhaps one problem is the tendency to compare it to the 1964 film with Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Larry Hagman and others, all of whom did an excellent job.

In this version, for example, I had trouble imagining Richard Dreyfuss (the President) in anything other than one of his comedic roles. Brian Dennehy as General Bogan you would think would be a stand out but you hardly notice him there. Harvel Keitel, one of my very favorite actors, seems wooden and bored as he delivers his lines.

One thing I liked about this presentation was a small twist they add regarding a last minute communication to the bomber pilot (George Clooney) from his family.

The story itself needs no exposition here. It is a riveting story set during the cold war. I read the book in junior high and first saw the 1964 version a couple of years before reading the book. The movie is as powerful for me now as it was when I saw it more than 40 years ago.

I give Clooney (the producer) credit for trying to revive an old style live television drama. I think it was a good idea to try. This production just has no fizz.

Still, if you are a fan of the story itself I would recommend you see it. If you've not seen the 1964 movie yet, see this TV version first.

George Clooney produced and directed this remake of the 1964 chiller "Fail-Safe" for live TV on CBS in 2000. The occasion was special insofar as there hadn't been a live dramatic production on any network in some years. Clooney played one of the leading characters and Richard Dreyfuss played the president, subbing for the monumental Henry Fonda who did so well in the 1964 version.

If you've never seen "Fail-Safe", it's a Cold war hydrogen bomb nightmare from a book of the same name. An electronic communications system goes awry and sends a nuclear-armed bomber crew at its "fail safe" point on the perimeter of the USSR into the nation with instructions to bomb Moscow. The drama revolves around efforts to recall the bomber and, when that cannot be done, the negotiations that go on with the Soviet Union on what retribution will be taken at home to avoid nuclear war if the bomber fulfills its mission.

The original film was 100 minutes of sheer tension and fright. It arrived on the big screen almost simultaneously with another Cold war nuclear nightmare, "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" -- Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition) -- Stanley Kubrick's very similar black comedy. The two films have become blood brothers as the first Cold war era movies about nuclear destruction; both were dreamed up moments after the 1962 Cuban missile criis occurred, the moment in the 20th century when superpowers USA and USSR came the closest to nuclear war, and released months apart in 1964.

Unfortunately, Clooney's remake is a tame and limp retelling of both the book and its foil, the 1964 movie. None of the actors in the remake are as good or believeable as those in the 1964 cast that featured Fonda, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Fritz Weaver and Larry Hagman, who grew to fame as J.R. Ewing in television's "Dallas." The aura of tension, fear, foreboding and inevitability that permeates the 1964 original is missing in the remake. Also, true to the foibles of live television (I watched this when it aired in 2000), the production started 7 minutes late and ended 11 minutes early, forcing CBS and the film's producers to scramble to fill time on the little screen.

If you have no exposure to the movie, my recommendation is to skip this version of "Fail Safe" and watch the 1964 film instead Fail-safe (Special Edition). The older one is a classic while the newer one is a lukewarm piece of television milquetoast. I give George Clooney marks for trying to reinvent a masterpiece in modern garb. Unfortunately, it doesn't carry the weight or authenticity of the original, a common problem of remakes.

Clooney, here and in Good Night and Good Luck, analyses after September 11 certain assumptions about what Americans are, in living black and white. The premise of the original movie and book, that an American president would make the sacrificial decision in Fail-Safe is unbelievable today but it was believable under JFK and even Eisenhower. Richard Dreyfuss' Jewish presence makes it so.

Harvey Keitel is just perfect as Blackie.

I did miss one thing. Blackie, in the original movie and in the book, has a recurring dream of a matador which is resolved at the finish: but for the same reason the directors of the new teleplay didn't dare show a girl dancing in Spanish Harlem to show what was sacrificed in an America trying not so damnably hard to deny its Afro-Carib roots, today's audiences would have been mystified by "the matador: I!"