{"id":14872,"date":"2026-08-14T16:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14872"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:35:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:35:52","slug":"the-brink-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/08\/14\/the-brink-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brink of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Brink of War <\/strong>(2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Angel\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Russell Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Russell Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Austin Wintory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Magdalena Gorka\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 14, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons, Hope Davis, Branka Katic, Aya Cash, Guy Burnet, John Ross Bowie, Adrian Rawlins, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Vladimir Kulich, Stephen Brennan.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Time is relative. It doesn\u2019t tick at the same rate for everybody. This is especially true when it comes to movies. The three hours I spent watching The Odyssey just flew by. Time stopped altogether with The Brink of War<\/strong>, a deathly dull political drama about the 1986 Reykjavik Summit. It\u2019s the most insufferable film of its kind since The Wizard of the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Show of hands, who knows what the Reykjavik Summit is? Hmmm, okay, that\u2019s not a lot. In October 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan sat down with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in remote Iceland to discuss complete nuclear disarmament with the objective of ending the Cold War. The main point of contention between the two leaders was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a shield in space that would protect America from a Soviet attack. The talks collapsed at the last minute over a single point, but it was the beginning of the end of the USSR. Now you know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It could have made for a fascinating film, but The Brink of War<\/strong> is about as interesting as chopped beef in the hands of writer-director Michael Russell Gunn. It is a slog from start to finish. It was a struggle to stay awake. I came close to nodding off a few times, but I never surrendered even though I knew it would be a better use of my time. The jury is still out on whether this counts as a victory. Whatever dream I might have had would probably have been more entertaining.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There is so much wrong with The Brink of War<\/strong> I hardly know where to start. Oh, wait a minute. Yes I do! Jeff Daniels is horribly miscast as Reagan. He doesn\u2019t look like the former President. He doesn\u2019t sound like him either. No, not even when he says \u201cwell\u201d (more than once). It\u2019s not just that. I, like a lot of others I suspect, can never unsee a certain scene in Dumb and Dumber. You know the one I mean. It\u2019s the one Daniels became famous (or infamous) for. It lingers in the memory like the time the kid at the desk right next to you barfed during English class in middle school. But I digress. Daniels, ordinarily a decent actor, just doesn\u2019t cut it here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jared Harris shows a little life as Gorbachev. He\u2019s a great actor. He did a wonderful job as Andy Warhol in the true crime drama I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). He\u2019s one of the better things about The Brink of War<\/strong>. He actually resembles the Soviet leader. He does a decent Russian accent too. Hope Davis (About Schmidt) shows up in a thankless role as Nancy Reagan. Here\u2019s the funny thing. She actually looks more like Hilary Clinton. I didn\u2019t buy her as Nancy at all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) is okay as Secretary of State George Schultz, but he doesn\u2019t get a lot to do here. What\u2019s even weirder is that the film is dedicated to him at the end. Okay, he may have orchestrated the meeting, but he does little more than hang around and give instructions to a group of advisors. I\u2019m sure the real-life Schultz did more than that in real life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The pacing isn\u2019t the only thing off about The Brink of War<\/strong>. The look of it is bad too. It looks cheap like the producers cut every cost they could. The score by Austin Wintory is heavy-handed and intrusive. The cinematography by Magdalena Gorka is flat and uninteresting. The story clumsily cuts between the talks and other business like the tension between the CIA and KGB in the room downstairs. Gunn does nothing with it. He does likewise with the two journalists peppering Mrs. Gorbachev (Katic, Big Love) with questions. Why mention it if you\u2019re not going to do anything of note with it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now let\u2019s address the elephant in the room. The Brink of War<\/strong> is an Angel Studios release. What does that mean? It means exactly what you think. It\u2019s less of a film than a piece of right-wing propaganda with a hagiographic vision of the 40th<\/sup> President. It\u2019s as bad as the 2024 biopic Reagan in that respect. The difference is Dennis Quaid was at least convincing in the title role. I\u2019m not necessarily against such films; I just think audiences should know what they\u2019re in for should they decide to see it. I strongly recommend against it. It\u2019s a bad movie. No, it\u2019s a horrible movie. I\u2019d say it\u2019s one of the year\u2019s worst.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brink of War (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Angel\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Russell Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Russell Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Austin Wintory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Magdalena Gorka\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 14, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons, Hope Davis, Branka Katic, Aya Cash, Guy Burnet, John Ross Bowie, Adrian Rawlins, Johannes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Brink-of-War-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C968&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14872"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14877,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14872\/revisions\/14877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}