Precient

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2006)

This movie is a highly detailed and incisive examination of the policy of Deterrence or Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Each of the logical underpinnings of this policy is carefully examined and found wanting. For example, what good is a Hot Line if one of the parties is drunk? Strict rules are great but what happens when someone " exceeds their authority." Each of the characters is larger than life and funny as hell, but what is so important about this movie is not what is says about the sixties, but the warning it has for the future.
Kubrick shows us that Deterrence, despite its flaws, only worked because both sides sincerely wanted their populace to survive. What happens when these weapons are controlled by people who, because God has told them so, see little or no value in their or their countrymen's lives? This is great movie because of the importance of the issues it deals with and the warning it provides.