Outbreak (1995) Warner Bros./Drama-Thriller RT: 128 minutes Rated R (language, disturbing images of diseased people) Director: Wolfgang Petersen Screenplay: Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool Music: James Newton Howard Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus Release date: March 10, 1995 (US) Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, Patrick Dempsey, Zakes Mokae, Kellie Overbey, Malick Bowens, Susan Lee Hoffman, Benito Martinez, Bruce Jarchow, Leland Hayward III, Daniel Chodos, Dale Dye, Cara Keough, Gina Menza, Diana Bellamy, Robert Alan Beuth, Lance Kerwin, Jim Antonio, J.T. Walsh (uncredited). Box Office: $67.6M (US)/$122.2M (World)
Rating: *** ½
In light of what our country is going through right now with COVID-19, my desire to watch the pandemic thriller Outbreak can only be described as a perverse compulsion. When it came out 25 years ago, I never imagined we would experience anything like it in our lifetime yet here we are confined to our homes like the people of the small rural California town through which a deadly virus is winding its way. Back then, it was entertainment. Now it’s art imitating life imitating art. Consider the quote that opens the movie, “The single biggest threat to man’s dominance on the planet is the virus.”* How eerily prescient it is now.
Wolfgang Petersen’s tense thriller stars Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) as Col. Sam Daniels, an Army virologist who first becomes aware of Motaba, a deadly virus that causes death within 24 hours of exposure, while investigating an outbreak in Zaire. His fears that it will eventually spread in the US are dismissed by his commanding officer General Ford (Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption). His ex-wife Roberta (Russo, Lethal Weapon 3), now working for the CDC in Atlanta, doesn’t take his warning seriously either. BIG mistake, guys!
The virus comes to the US via a capuchin monkey taken and shipped illegally from the African jungle. It ends up in the hands of Jimbo (Dempsey, Can’t Buy Me Love) who steals it from an animal testing facility with the intention of selling it on the black market. When that deal falls through, he releases into the woods in Palisades and returns home to Boston. He catches the virus from the monkey and immediately infects his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, a lab worker testing an infected person’s blood sample catches it himself and spreads it throughout a movie theater in Cedar Creek, CA. A lot of people get very sick. Roberta and her team of CDC scientists fly to Cedar Creek to deal with the crisis. Sam, in total defiance of orders, is already there with his guys, Lt. Col. Schuler (Spacey, The Usual Suspects) and new recruit Major Salt (Gooding, Jerry Maguire). As they begin their search for the source of the virus, the Army orders the entire town quarantined and establishes martial law.
That’s not all; there’s conspiracy afoot. It turns out Ford has encountered this virus before. He and his colleague Major McClintock (Sutherland, Eye of the Needle) secretly orchestrated the bombing of an infected African village during the Vietnam War in order to cover up Motaba’s existence. The casualties included several infected American soldiers. It turns out Ford and McClintock have an antidote that cures only the original strain. It has since mutated into a new airborne strain that necessitates Sam locating the monkey to create a new antiserum. McClintock, evil SOB that he is, wants to prevent that all costs. He has plans for the virus.
Outbreak is solid work from Petersen whose resume includes Das Boot, In the Line of the Fire and Air Force One. While he doesn’t outdo himself with it, it’s certainly a feather in his cap. It’s a well-crafted, well-paced virus thriller that recalls similar movies of the 70s- e.g. The Andromeda Strain, The Crazies. It plays on our fears of something deadly lurking in the jungles of Africa and I don’t mean lions. It’s an entity that can be brought back here and spread quickly across the country at an alarming rate. Worse than that, it could mean D.C. politicos green-lighting the deaths of innocent civilians for the greater good of the country’s populace. At least that’s what McClintock wants them to think. Evil lurking in the military, that’s another great fear shared by many. Outbreak plays on many fears at once and does so effectively.
Solid work from a talented cast is another one of the film’s strengths. I never thought of Hoffman as an action hero, but he pulls it off here. At the same time, he adds humanity to his character with his complex feelings for Russo’s character. Recently divorced, they spend as much time arguing over who gets to keep the dogs as discussing their next move in locating the source of the virus. She does a good job in the role. Freeman brings his usual sense of class and dignity to his conflicted character, a basically good man already complicit in one massacre and about to take part in a second. That is, if decency doesn’t kick in. Sutherland’s character is the embodiment of pure evil, he excels at such roles. Really, the entire cast does a good job.
There are a lot of good scenes in Outbreak like the exciting helicopter chase and stand-off in the climax. My favorite part is the movie theater scene. The infected person, already visibly sick, coughs and his germs spread throughout the theater into the mouths of other patrons. He then stumbles into the lobby where he infects about a dozen other people before finally collapsing. Why do I like this scene? It ought to scare the hell out of me given how much time I spend going to the movies. It DOES scare me. That’s why I like it so much. It hits very, VERY close to home.
Although I like Outbreak very much, it’s probably not a good idea for some of you to watch or rewatch it right now. Hey, it’s a damn good movie. It’s thrilling, exciting, scary, interesting and even educational. Still, it’s too timely for some. Then again, it leaves the viewer with hope that COVID-19 too shall pass.
*= Credited to molecular biologist and Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg
