Product Details

• Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr.
• Directors: Wolfgang Petersen
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English, Korean
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 26, 1999
• Run Time: 128 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0790740265
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,714 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
When Warner Brothers was unable to secure the rights to Richard Preston's terrifying nonfiction book The Hot Zone (purchased by a rival studio), they took the basic idea of a fatal virus on the loose in the U.S., added Dustin Hoffman and director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot), and produced an unusual thriller--a surprise hit--called Outbreak. The other picture, slated to star Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, fell through. The premise of Outbreak, which owes something to Elia Kazan's 1950 plague-scare movie, Panic in the Streets, is as terrifying as it is timely. As developers slash their way deeper into the previously unexplored tropical rainforests, they are exposed to radically new forms of life, including diseases, that in these days of commonplace international travel could turn into deadly epidemics almost before we know it. Hoffman's character and his estranged wife (Rene Russo) are disease experts called in to identify the unknown killer, which was carried into the country by an illegally smuggled monkey. The best sequence shows the disease spreading--through recycled air on a passenger jet, or a sneeze in a crowded movie theater. The final chase is pretty conventional, but the cast is terrific, including Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr., J.T. Walsh, and Zakes Mokae. --Jim Emerson

From The New Yorker
Wolfgang Petersen's biohazard thriller is a textbook example of Hollywood's ability to make something new look very old and very familiar. The screenplay, by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool (and five pricey script doctors), invents a rain-forest virus called Motaba, which migrates from Zaire and runs amok in a Northern California town. The virus is a promising villain for an apocalyptic thriller, but the filmmakers keep it contained-locked into an action-movie structure that reduces an unsettling subject to a predictable this-time-it's-personal conflict between a good-guy scientist (Dustin Hoffman) and a bad-guy general (Donald Sutherland). The movie produces a bizarre hybrid strain of suspense: it's a Hot Zone thriller with a Cold War sensibility. Also with Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Goodings, Jr. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Very Intertaining, August 11, 2003

By	Kevin W "pacers721" (Oak Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outbreak (DVD)

This movie is one of the best and most underated movies I seen. The basic storyline is a virus starts off like many others. The main character (Dustin Hoffman) has a hunch that this virus can be very serious, and turns out being so. From here the movie took off and just got better and better. During the last 40 minutes of the movie, I was so stuck in it, I don't think I moved the entire time. This movie is a rare must see. One reason I liked it so much is that the concept of the movie just got you thinking. Can't say it enough, it's a great movie!

24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-see, frighteningly real medical/military thriller, January 12, 2004

By	Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Outbreak (DVD)

Outbreak is one of the best, most absorbing, most impressive films I've seen in a long, long time. It is based on a threat more frightening than nuclear war, stars the best actors and actresses Hollywood has to offer, features tons of heart-pumping, exhilarating action, and falls squarely in the category of "blew me away." Man, that Dustin Hoffman can act; I don't believe I've ever fully appreciated the man's acting skills before. Then you have Morgan Freeman, for my money the best actor working today; I'm used to Freeman being squarely on the side of good vs. evil, and I wanted to slap him many times as I was watching this film, but the man does incredible work. Donald Sutherland plays his rather inhuman role perfectly, Rene Russo lights up the screen, Cuba Gooding, Jr., supplies both humor and heroism of the noblest kind, and Kevin Spacey shines in a co-starring role. When Kevin Spacey is in your film but is not the bonafide star of the whole thing, you know you're looking at some kind of special movie. As an animal lover, I also have to praise the animals that performed so well in this film, especially the poor little monkey who helps start a national and potentially global crisis through no fault of his own.

You have to respect viruses. These things are the killer sharks of the microscopic world, insidious, darn near indestructible little buggers who destroy every cell in their path. They don't clock out after eight hours or nap away afternoon breaks; these things never stop or rest. The subject of Outbreak is a very special virus borne in the wilds of Africa, an unmatched destructive force that can kill a man (in the most horrible of ways) in a matter of hours. It's like nothing ever seen before - well, actually, it was seen in 1967, but the powers that be took their little secret home with them in a vial and firebombed all the evidence of its existence (along with a significant number of innocent human beings). Now, the virus is back; not only is it back, it is in America - brought to these shores in the form of a poor little monkey taken from its home and illegally smuggled into this country. Our government and in particular our military faces an invisible enemy that can destroy the nation and everyone in it in a matter of days. If and when such a virus outbreak does take place here, let us all fervently hope that our government performs much better than they do in this movie.

Dustin Hoffman plays Col. Sam Daniels of the USAMRIID, a noble man who did not forget his Hippocratic Oath when he became an army officer. He and his crew, including Major Schuler (Kevin Spacey) and new team member Major Salt (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), in conjunction with Daniels' ex-wife, former co-worker, and new bigwig at the CDC Robby Keough (Rene Russo) are basically the only people in the government more concerned with saving lives than with protecting military secrets. Daniels' boss is Brigadier General Ford (Morgan Freeman), a frustrating player in these events who knows things about the virus he is forbidden (and does not want to) admit, but the true villain of this tale is Maj. General Donald McClintock (played to a slimy tee by Donald Sutherland). Daniels and his fellow heroes rush to help the dying and to battle this awful virus, constantly stymied and eventually gravely threatened by military superiors who care more about protecting the secret of a biological weapon than about the people they pledged themselves to defend and protect.

The things you see in this film are quite possible, and that is what makes it such a gripping, even frightening film. While the audience is never treated to a true gross-out shot of what this super duper hemorrhagic virus can do to a human body, the horror is nevertheless quite real. The heroism of Daniels and Salt in particular isn't limited to the hospitals and labs; they take on the government and the military itself in an effort to save lives. The one critical information source the medical team needs is the host organism. The original carrier who brought the virus to America's shores represents the only real hope of saving a whole town and very possibly the entire nation. This virus has a 100% kill rate; no one survives it.

Well over two hours of increasingly adrenaline-pumping suspense await the viewer of Outbreak. This movie will hold you completely under its spell and leave a definite impression on you for some time to come. It is a rare joy to see Hollywood take on a very serious issue and deal with it in a realistic fashion, and few movies can boast the caliber of talent that you will find here. One or two of the leading actors in this modern thriller can carry a movie on their own, but here a whole range of Hollywood's best come together to make a movie that succeeds perfectly. As far as I'm concerned, Outbreak is a must-see motion picture.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outbreak - Blu-ray Info, September 3, 2008

By	LGANS316 (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outbreak [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
VC-1 BD-25 / Advanced Profile 3
Running time: 2:08:12
Movie size: 22,336,395,264 bytes
Disc size: 22,710,846,208 bytes
Average video bit rate: 14.99 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1685 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1685kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio German 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 1.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps

Subtitles: English SDH / French / German / Japanese / Spanish
Number of chapters: 45
Extras: None