Countdown to Zero

This documentary takes a look at nuclear weapons and the rise of terrorism. Various terrorist groups try to buy, steal, or build a nuclear bomb. Russia is a source of many stolen nuclear material. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the safeguards seem to fade away and many attempted smuggled nuclear material has been caught. It's unknown how much have not been caught. Then there are the nukes that is kept by the nuclear powers. There are accidents. There are close calls. There is proliferation. There is the possibility of war. There is an ever-rising possibility of nuclear weapon use in today's complex world. Filmmaker Lucy Walker is not subtle about its anti-nuke message. She's also convincing in her logical, thorough examination of the issue. There is not a lot of new investigations. However, the regular guy on the street would probably be shocked at some of the presentation.

"There's no doubt in my mind that if terrorists had acquired a nuclear weapon, they would not hesitate to use it." Former CIA covert operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson

Countdown to Zero is as apocalyptic as An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on global warming: It is fear-mongering enough that it hurts the effort to bring a necessary return to Cold- War thinking.

Countdown to Zero is single minded in its effort to have zero nuclear weapons, of which there are more than 23,000 in the world. When the documentary arrives at calling for a popular movement, by which President Kennedy admitted he was influenced, it loses some credibility. No amount of popular demand will, for instance, change Osama bin Laden's resolve to exact the deaths of millions of Americans should he gain the necessary ingredients. The documentary's point can't be denied: Nuclear proliferation is so possible now that it seems almost impossible to stop it. The sloppy Russian storage of enriched uranium and plutonium is scary. Although over a hundred countries have disavowed nuclear weapons, hundreds like the US and Russia jealously retain them and some sell the theory if not the ingredients.

In a film almost devoid of light moments, the sometimes amusing Boris Yeltsin in 1995 inadvertently showed how serendipity can be a force in our favor. He questioned if the US had launched a missile toward Russia even though his advisors said it had. He prevailed, Russia did not retaliate, and the world discovered that only a scientific rocket had been launched. Whew!

Countdown to Zero makes a manipulative point by showing people in the street calling for zero weapons. Where are those opposed to zero? Most of us agree to a total ban except those security-minded who know deterrence is still a trump card impressive to diplomats and terrorists. While this documentary adds a little to the race to disarm, it lacks the balance a fair documentary should have. But then, Al Gore and Michael Moore haven't been accused of being balanced either, and they both live in nice houses.

Fox News abandoned its balancing act long ago in the face of soaring ratings. Who said life is fair? or balanced?

I liked this film, it's watchable and make some good points, but there are a couple of odd statements:. The US did not test the first atomic bombs. (what was Trinity). Then they list the nuclear states and don't mention South Africa (but towards the end they correctly point out that South Africa developed and then abandoned nuclear weapons)

Firstly I understand how many people will feel after watching this movie. That another liberal agenda is being played up and the end to nuclear armament is just asking for terrorism to advance within our country, you couldn't be more wrong. Being in the military for almost ten years it was my experience that most folks get three things wrong when they think about someone using such a device in our country. One, they believe that it comes from a country. This kind of terrorism has no country and has no head to govern it, merely opportunity. The idea that you can "nuke them back" gets a little complicated when the bomb may come from a diplomatically friendly country or even from within our own. Two that such a device is complicated and needs teams of people and money to create, not so. Such a device can be crudely manufactured with a lead pipe 4gm of enriched plutonium and a shotgun shell. The devices themselves do not need to be complex to kill several thousand people, and the people setting them off probably have no qualms about killing themselves in the process. A crudely made machine can be made from almost anything you can find in a hardware store and those items are so everyday that they will not raise any FBI flags. Lastly, Three that there is a solution to such a problem. There isn't one. While the film makes a proud gesture at telling us that all we need to do is this... That is a pipe dream and besides we have gone to far down the path of destruction to make it any better. So in all of this what might be the way to make any of these problems go away. Again I'm sorry to say, nothing. We now have to live in a world where this "might" happen any day at any time. The only thing we can do is hope that we find better ways of detecting potential threats than by clandestinely stumbling into them. The movie is a gem in terms of showing that the "human" part of these weapons is the most dangerous part of them. With respect to our last president he finger that could push the button was also attached to the brain of a recovering alcoholic judgment should be reserved for the viewer and their experience but keep in mind that these things however embellished are real and are waiting right within and outside your door.

Remember "An Inconvenient Truth"? Rembember Al Gore, and how climate change became THE hot topic in 2007? Everyone talked about it, they made millions, climate change was even acknowledged and its fight endorsed in the US. Momentum has really been building up lately, for the topic of nuclear disarmament, since the Prague speech by Obama, the Nuclear Posture Review on April 6th, the New START on April 8th, the Nuclear Security Summit on April 12th/13th (biggest gathering of heads of state since the founding of the UN 1945), the NPT RevCon in May and now, starting in June in Cannes, this global movie which is going to raise awareness on a massive scale.

After Al Gore receiving his Nobel Peace Prize for his engagement against global warming, the producers asked themselves, which other topic needed some massive attention by a broader public, and agreed they had to cover the issue of nuclear disarmament (voilà a video-interview of the producers explaining so: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Lawrence-Bander). The movie "Countdown to Zero", by the producer Lawrence Bender, which you are gonna know from movies such as „An Inconvenient Truth", or else almost all of Quentin Tarantino's movies, for that matter, and which UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon warmly lauded for his mobilization of a global public for the cause of climate change is supposed to be doing the very same for disarmament. Go get 'em, boys! Arguably, the timing could not be better. Marketing experts around the world are busy as we speak. The movie will start in Chinese theaters even before the US; also Iran, Egypt, Turkey, as well as Western Europe (the usual suspects) will be served soon, starting with the International Film Festival in Cannes.

Ban Ki-moon and Michael Douglas (UN-messenger for nuclear disarmament) also strongly endorse it. The movie itself carefully approaches the viewer to the topic of imminently possible nuclear annihilation, not scaring people of with details right away, but repeating the important facts to enhance the chances viewers will recall them. The movie loses itself in multiple enumerations of horrible anecdotes, but without getting boring in doing so, as every one of them seems noteworthy. Having gone through the issues of false alarms, easy access to launch-codes, hair-trigger alert, the staggering consequences of even few nuclear weapons detonating and causing a "nuclear winter" (explained in this video by Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who is also featured in the Movie itself: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Ira-Helfand), an artificial ice age that would likely destroy almost the whole species due to plants not surviving three years of frost..

As to nuclear terrorism, insecure storage is covered, especially in countries such as Pakistan, as well as smuggling from the former Soviet Union, both of which could enable terrorists to blow up a major city changing all perspectives on security and personal freedoms forever. Pretty much detail is also given to just how swiftly a bomb could be made, once the fissile material has been acquired.

All of these dangers then converge into an enthusiastically, pathetically presented appeal to the world and audience to demand and pursue complete disarmament and reach Global Zero. Despite the fact that the connection between the dangers arising from terrorist proliferation and the imperative to disarm is poorly outlined, the movie does make a strong case for an end to the era of nuclear weapons. This will receive massive worldwide attention thanks to the scale on which the production will be advertised. It is only thanks to this hope of broad attention that I can get myself to write this very review in spite of the whopping depressive message conveyed buy this movie.

In case you aren't yet in favor of a world without nukes: Look, if […] you've never changed your mind about something, pinch yourself. You may be dead. - closing sequence

In summary, the movie surely does not provide for an in-depths, differentiated look at the nuclear armament problem, but it does resume its dangers in a rather impressive way. Not touching on the controversial issues such as Israel, Iran, disarmament failures under article VI NPT, it can rather be described as the least common denominator, focusing on the indisputable dangers we face. But sure, why not?