COUNTDOWN TO ZERO 2 stars
Magnolia Pictures, Rated PG
Seeming less like a doomsday doc than a U.S. Defense Department PSA, Lucy Walker’s Countdown to Zero is an alarmist neo-nuke proliferation outcry against the persistent dangers of nuclear annihilation that appear to have never gone away, at least when it comes to the acquisition and possession of any of that lethal weaponry in irresponsible hands.
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Which by inference in the course of Countdown never counts the United States, conveniently absent from the proposed global rap sheet of potential warmongers. It’s particularly head-scratching when scanning the list for any culprit who may have already nuked civilian populations or continues to amass the largest stockpile in the world. A questionable omission indeed.
Veering strangely between secretive U.S. military think tank advisories and explicit how-to manual recipes for cooking up a nuke at your kitchen sink in a jiffy, Countdown appears to relish having it both ways. That is, banning the big bang from rivals at all costs while letting them and everyone else in on scary secrets, enough so to turn the coldest war instantaneously hot. Not to mention inciting enough public fear to actually advocate even more weaponry as a precautionary measure back here at home.
Rummaging through the many possibilities of surprise detonations, Countdown To Zero conjures under-the-radar machinations of buying, stealing and building uranium-rich ingredients while mulling triple-threat detonations via action, error or misjudgment. Smuggling scenarios also measure high on the terror meter, with import depot radiation detectors potentially neutralized by containers housing an array of chemical products, tobacco, and even toilets and kitty litter.
Juggling post-Soviet cold war narratives and players old and new, Countdown to Zero’s talking eggheads fault Russia for privatizing their stockpiles and peddling them to the highest bidders, but they skirt any discussion of continued U.S. scouting for land leasing in former Eastern European Soviet bloc countries for the proliferation of missiles pointed at the Kremlin.
