Outbreak

Plot synopsis:
Motaba, a fictional virus which causes a deadly fever, is discovered in the African jungle in 1967. To maintain the virus as a viable biological weapon, two U.S. Army officers, Donald McClintock and William Ford, destroy the camp where it was found after taking blood samples from the dying victims.Twenty-eight years later, in 1995, the virus resurfaces in Zaire. Colonel Sam Daniels, a USAMRIID virologist, is sent to investigate. He and his crew, Lieutenant Colonel Casey Schuler, and new recruit Major Salt gain information about the virus and return to the United States, where Daniels asks his superior, now-Brigadier General William Ford, to put out an alert. Ford knows that the virus is not new, but he tells Daniels it is unlikely to show up. Daniels' ex-wife and former crew-member Roberta Keough, has left USAMRIID to take the lead role of a similar team at the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia and is convinced by Daniels to recommend an alert from the CDC, but her superior balks as well.Meanwhile, we learn that the virus arrived via a host animal, a white-headed capuchin monkey, that was smuggled into the United States. James "Jimbo" Scott, an employee at the Bio-Test animal holding facility, bribed a security guard and took the monkey to Cedar Creek, California, to sell on the black market. During the drive, Jimbo is infected with the virus through facial contact with the monkey's saliva.Jimbo unsuccessfully tries to sell the monkey to a crooked pet store owner, Rudy Alvarez Before parting ways, however, the monkey scratches Alvarez and infects him, and shares a banana with another monkey already in the store, infecting that monkey as well. Not able to care for the monkey, Jimbo releases it into the woods. Jimbo starts to show signs of infection while flying to Boston, where he gets off the plane and kisses his girlfriend Alice, infecting her as well just before collapsing. They are both hospitalized. Keough investigates the infections but finds that no one other than Jimbo, his girlfriend or Rudy all three of whom die of hemorrhagic fever in the Boston area was infected.Meanwhile, the technicians at a Cedar Creek hospital run tests on Rudy's blood. But Henry, one of the technicians, accidentally breaks a vial, splattering the contents, infecting and killing him, but not before visiting a movie theater. The virus mutates into a new strain, capable of spreading like flu, and numerous Cedar Creek citizens are exposed to Motaba at the theater. Daniels learns of the infection and flies to Cedar Creek alongside Schuler and Salt, against Ford's orders, joining Keough's team.As Daniels and his team begin a search for the host animal, a state of martial law is declared in Cedar Creek, and the U.S. Army has quarantined the town to contain the outbreak, including preventing an attempt by civilians from breaking quarantine. During their research, Schuler is infected when his suit tears. Keough follows after she accidentally stabs herself with a contaminated needle while collecting samples due to Schuler suddenly convulsing. A mystery serum, E-1101, is introduced to those suffering from Motaba. Daniels soon realizes that the serum is not experimental, but was designed to cure Motaba, and that Ford knew about the virus beforehand. However, the serum does not help the residents of Cedar Creek, who are infected by a mutated strain. Daniels confronts Ford, who admits that he withheld information on the virus due to national security and Motaba's potential to be turned into a biological weapon.Daniels learns from Ford of Operation Clean Sweep, a plan by the military to bomb the town of Cedar Creek, with approval from the President of the United States. Now-Major General Donald McClintock plans to use the bombing to cover up the virus's existence to protect his secret biological weapon project. To prevent Daniels from finding a cure, McClintock has him arrested by implicating Daniels as a viral carrier. This leads Daniels and Salt to search for the host animal to save the town by escaping custody by helicopter. After the animal holding facility who had been aiding Daniels by tracking down how the host animal got into the country learns what happened from the security guard about what Jimbo did, the two are able to track down the ship that carried the host animal and Daniels obtains a picture of Betsy and broadcasts it on the news. Mrs. Jeffries realizes that this is the animal her daughter Kate is playing with in their backyard. She calls the station, and the two men arrive at the family's house, though Colonel Briggs intercepts the call and informs McClintock of Daniels and Salt's location who heads out to intercept them by helicopter. Kate coaxes out Betsy, whom Salt tranquilizes. Learning from Daniels that the host animal is captured, Ford delays the bombing.Flying back, Daniels and Salt are confronted by McClintock who tries to force them to head to their local air force base, only for Daniels to refuse. While McClintock's helicopter chases theirs, Daniels has Salt fire two rockets into the trees to trick McClintock into thinking they crashed so they could escape by flying low enough to avoid being detected by radar. Returning to Cedar Creek, Salt mixes Betsy's antibodies with the E-1101 to create an anti-serum in time to save Keough, but not Schuler, who has already succumbed to the virus. McClintock arrives back at base and has Operation Clean Sweep resumed, refusing to listen to Ford who now wishes to call off the bombing. Daniels discovers this and realizes that McClintock will not call off the bombing. He and Salt take it upon themselves to fly in the way of the bomber, commanded by a pilot with the call sign of Sandman One, to stop it. With support from Ford, Daniels is able to stay in the way of the plane long enough to convince Sandman One and his co-pilot that information was purposely withheld from them and that they can now cure the remaining townsfolk. Heeding Daniels' warnings, Sandman One deliberately detonates the bomb over water instead of the town. Before McClintock can order another bombing, Ford, having had enough of McClintock's single-minded obsession, relieves McClintock of his command and places him under arrest for deliberately withholding information from the President, though while being taken away by Col. Briggs, McClintock promises he'll take Ford down with him. Daniels and Keough reconcile, and the remaining residents of the town are successfully cured.

Tags: suspenseful, romantic

Review:
Dustin Hoffman is stupendous as always, Rene Russo plays Robbie with realism, Kevin Spacey makes for a good humor man, Cuba Gooding Jr. pulls off the green man trying to earn respect, and being a bad-ass at the same time.
Col. Daniels wants to look into it but General Ford denies his request so he turns to his estranged ex-wife (Rene Russo) , who works at the Center for Disease Control or CDC to look into and they discover it's the African disease but since it kills very quickly, Col. Daniels feels that it's been contained until another outbreak and learns the virus makes the bubonic pest look like a cough .
Nice performance for all-star-cast as Hoffman , Russo , Morgan Freeman as a good general , Cuba Gooding Jr as intrepid official expert on helicopters , Kevin Spacey as helper and many others .
Good direction by Petersen who does have its thrilling moments , most of them in the first half , though the second half degenerates in a superhero movie in which Hoffman turning into an one army man -almost caricature and barely credible- against the military intelligence represented by nasty Donald Sutherland .
It is a real treat of a movie to watch which not only acts as pure entertainment but also a deeply involving film which involves great performances and some real thrilling moments.
However things seem abnormally calm, and I got fed up of main stars getting infected just to add to the pressure to Dustim Hoffman's character.But overall this film is brilliant, I strongly advise everyone tries to watch this.
With the politicians planning the destruction of the town to stop the virus spreading, Col Sam Daniels and his team race to find some other way of stopping it.Whether you viewed in back in 1995 or now, where the threat of viral attack doesn't seem so unlikely, this film should be gripping on the basis of the material.
But then the writing generally isn't up to the task and the heavy dialogue is pretty average at best with clichéd lines and far too much 'personal' stuff between the main characters.Even the main 'bad' guy is a fudge as it just paints everything black and white.Another reason that this doesn't live up to its potential is the sheer numbers of faces in the film.
My only qualm about the movie is the helicopter chases near the end, as I don't believe they fit the overall story arch.Wolfgang Petersen's film is about how a fictional disease from Zaire called the Motaba runs rampant in a small California village.
We also get great supporting turns from Kevin Spacey and the villainous Donald Sutherland.Overall, Outbreak is an excellent movie that raises the question "what if?" If any town gets an outbreak of a deadly virus, would the government and the military take the same course of action as they did in this film?
Warner Brothers shrugged its shoulders and decided to make a competing killer disease film NOT based on the book; and so they got together a script, director and cast as quickly as possible in the hopes of getting "Outbreak" to cinema screens first.
Headed by Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman (who also do well) the movie also included names like Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Donald Sutherland.
Hoffman played Col. Daniels - an Army doctor trying to figure this out; Freeman was his friend and superior Gen. Ford.When the focus of the movie was on the fight against the disease, this was pretty good.
I found the fight against this disease more gripping than the battle in "Contagion." The two movies also share a similar plot point about the motives of the government.Where "Outbreak" fails is at the point that it chooses to become little more than an action thriller (basically the last 30-40 minutes) which eventually gets reduced to little more than an extended helicopter chase.
Get the producer of PLATOON and the director of DAS BOOT to cast Hoffman , Freeman , Sutherland , Gooding Jnr and Spacey in a thriller about a killer virus and you`ll have a sure fire blockbuster hit .
Despite having an all star cast and massive budget and despite the very good pre titles sequence OUTBREAK  is a bad movie.The main culprit for this debacle is Dworet and Pool`s script , it`s far too talky .
Despite being an extremely unpleasant film THE CRAZIES made far better use of this speculative plot and its moral consequences unlike here where Donald Sutherland is the bad guy because he wants to firebomb a town to stop the virus spreading .
Ah but there`s a plot device that does show Sutherland`s character to be the villain of the piece so out goes any intelligent subtext as to what would be the right or wrong thing to do in such a situation .So just to sum up : despite its great cast and production team OUTBREAK is nothing special and at times feels like an overblown TVM.
I actually enjoyed Outbreak from the start although form the first few minutes you could tell it's a B+ movie at the very best.However the enjoyment diminished dramatically when the good old fashioned Hollywood recipe of the one man army/hero who ignores laws, regulations, procedures, and simply does what comes to his head prevailed.It did not come as a surprise because it seemed rather odd the fact that you have a VERY GOOD cast (Hoffman, Sunderland, Spacey, Gooding) and whilst I was holding the case at the DVD retailer I noticed the complete lack of press appraisalor at least there's none in the UK packaging of the film.
Hard to believe that Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. and several more excellent actors could be assembled in a very fine production under Wolfgang Petersen's direction, all at the service of a script so utterly preposterous.
Spacey acquits himself rather well too, and I don't really blame Sutherland, Gooding, Rene Russo or JT Walsh for having to say the lines they were paid handsomely to say, but this is one of the great embarrassments of Hoffman's career, and really it's a mystery to me how a terrific storyteller like Petersen could have made it..
Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland and Rene Russo are old hands at playing in slanted political stories.
And whilst it would be a while before he actually played God. The man was amazing in everything he did.) Any movie became promising, just by having his name in the cast.Rene Russo was here too and she was establishing herself as a top actress after good performances in 'Lethal Weapon 3' and 'In The Line of Fire'Kevin Spacey squeezed this movie in, inbetween 'The Usual Suspects' and 'Seven' Cuba Gooding Jr has a good role too.
Only it seems that for some reason the powers that be – among whose numbers are Billy (Morgan Freeman) and McClintock (Donald Sutherland) – ain't listening, despite all the evidence, scientific graphs, diagrams and powerpoint charts that practically demand to the audience that they should.By the way all of the above have perfectly legitimate army ranks, but in a film this silly I like to refer to them as Sam, Billy and co Sam thinks that this new virus is reeeeeelllll bad, he tells his ex Robbie (Rene Russo), who is now a civilian scientist.
Billy arrives on the scene to demand no more talk about this bizarre cover-up, and a cast of mostly good (and in many cases award winning) actors wallow in this mediocrity for another 90 minutes of ennui.As Sam and Saul go to increasingly great lengths to solve the case and find the cure things get altogether nonsensical, especially once they realise the 'carrier' is a tiny illegal immigrant monkey from Africa, lost somewhere in one of the 50 some landlocked states.As the virus mutates, morphs and generally becomes more aggressive, the 'management' spout speeches and assorted tripe with buzzwords like 'quarantine', 'containment' and 'eradication', and even if Cuba Gooding Jr said "Show me the monkey!" I wouldn't have been surprised.Alas he didn't, as it might have given me my one and only chuckle in this interminably long and exponentially sillier dross.
I'm a big fan of disaster movies, this one is a classic mostly due to the outstanding cast attached (Donald Sutherland, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Rene Russo, Cuba Gooding Jr.) and an (almost) realistic story.It's a decent movie for the most part although does get a bit hokey and over the top where the government conspiracy angle is concerned.
Patrick Dempsy was a surprise here, playing Jimbo the young grunge dude who steals the monkey.The cast is fantastic with Hoffman as the lead expert on contagious diseases trying to stamp out a killer virus in a small California town.
Morgan Freeman is a General caught in the middle, trying to cover up the fact that he and Donald Sutherland bombed the hell out of an African village in the 60's to halt the same disease.Sutherland's character becomes too much, almost comical towards the end in his sublime efforts to stop Hoffman from finding out the truth and to complete his (personal) mission of eradicating the infected town.
We get a personal POV of the small speckles traveling through the air, where they curve around, drifting around distorted images of humans, and eventually the speckles get sucked into the mouth of a woman laughing, eating popcorn merrily, not realizing what has happened.Soon the word is breaking out, and General Morgan Freeman sends in Dustin Hoffman and his colleague, Kevin Spacey, to eliminate the virus, against the wishes of sinister General Donald Sutherland.
Throw in an awesome cast (I mean Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding, Donald Sutherland, and ,oh yeah, Kevin Spacey) and it doesn't get any better.
Lets put it this way, if a serum could be developed as quickly as all that, it would not make for much of a biiological waepon would it?If you suspend your grasp on reality it is a very entertaining film with good performances, especially from Donald Sutherland as the 'military nasty'.
Rating: ***** out of 5.Movie InfoDirector: Wolfgang PetersenCast: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey.Writers: Laurence Dworet, Robert Roy PoolRunning time: 127 min.
There are a nice mix of different types of characters and relationships so they can add humor, dramatic elements and everything they want and make it work.Dustin Hoffman, Renee Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland and Cuba Gooding Jr. This movie features a bunch of good actors and none of them are having a bad day.
Outbreak is a taut,nerve-wracking thriller.Wolfgang Petersen has proven himself one of Hollywood's most capable action/thriller directors,and with Outbreak he delivers a real doozy!A movie about a killer virus that makes Ebola look like the chicken pox and a military bioweapon conspiracy to boot!I first saw this movie during a "Free HBO Weekend".It totally blew me away,so much so that I went out the next day to Blockbuster and got the VHS video.Dustin Hoffman.Rene Russo,Morgan Freeman,Cuba Gooding,Jr.,Patrick Dempsey,Kevin Spacey and Donald Sutherland all give terrific performances.I wish I'd seen this in the theatres.
For those who need some realism and credibility to like a movie, this can be a problem.Dustin Hoffman is a good actor, but I think he allowed that his character was emptied of all the personality that he could have had.
Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland (in yet another military villain character)...
Patrick Dempsey plays a smuggler who unknowingly brings in a monkey that is a carrier of the contagion, and starts a new outbreak that Daniels tries desperately to contain and cure, while two generals(played by Morgan Freeman & Donald Sutherland) disagree sharply on how to fight this threat, whether to use martial law or not, or to destroy the area it is in to stop it spreading, even if it means killing thousands of civilians...
Wow I remember this so long ago....Rarely has there been such a collection of acting talent in one film -- Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland .
Even the monkey survives, at least I think he does, but I haven't seen the film in a while.So if you've always wanted to see a bizarre movie hybrid of; The Satan Bug, Blue Thunder, Dunston Checks In and Love Story, then Outbreak is your best bet.
People are killed very quickly when they get infected this virus and the military must find a way to stop it before it spreads on and creates chaos and panic.The story is very relevant to some of the 'outbreaks' we see to this day with both SARS, the bird flu, Swine flu etc, it shows how rapidly a disease can expand throughout the entire World.
Regardless, I was left hanging by a fairly unoriginal disaster movie.Plot holes, cheesy action sequences and unrealistic depictions of human behavior during an outbreak aside, the film managed to keep my attention for two hours, though this wasn't necessarily a good thing.
As the disease makes itself known, rapidly infecting a small Californian township, army scientist Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) and his crew must try to find a cure before despicable general McClintock (Donald Sutherland) carries out his plan to firebomb the area and its inhabitants.Being something of a germaphobe, I find Outbreak to be a genuinely scary movie, depicting the horrific scenario of a deadly viral epidemic hitting small-town America; the mere idea of microscopic bugs that can enter the body unseen and liquefy the internal organs really gets under my skin (pun intended), and if such a virus did hit the civilised Western world, I don't fancy the chances of Cuba Gooding Jr. cooking up a batch of anti-virus in time to save our collective ass.Extreme liberties are taken with medical facts and the film is pretty implausible at times, with a traditionally sappy happy Hollywood ending, but it still manages to be hugely entertaining nonsense: Director Wolfgang Petersen effectively feeds on his audience's paranoia, depicting 'Joe Public' succumbing to the illness in the the most innocuous of places, most notably in a movie theatre (a scene that really made me want to cover my mouth when I saw it on the big screen); he also shoehorns in a cool conspiracy subplot—a government cover-up—making this perfect fodder for those with overactive imaginations.
"Outbreak" is the star-studded story of an infectious disease expert for the army (Dustin Hoffman) who is fighting a super-deadly, fast-moving virus which his own employer seems to have had some role in creating.
This is it's main weakness, as a minority of the plot is actually about the virus, as it spends so much time dwelling on corrupt generals and the boring romantic back-story."Outbreak" is weakened because it tries to be three or four different kinds of movies when really the only thing it approaches doing a good job at is the disease outbreak plot.
J.T. Walsh played in a lot of crap but also a lot of spectacular movies but in that small little role, him and Dempsey were really my favorites and made Freeman, Hoffman and Gooding in their roles throughout the film just look average of what they usually display on screen!
Dustin Hoffman is great as the intense scientist risking it all to fight the bug and Rene Russo and Cuba Gooding Jr. both providing strong supporting characters.
Soon the virus becomes airborne and is infecting everything in its path.Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Donald Sutherland are all terrific in this film, which was extremely well-directed by Wolfgang Peterson.
Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland all work together to tell a great tale.
Wolfgang Petersen's typical intriguing screenplay and the top-notch performances from Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Rene Russo, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland all add a real tension and fear in this surprising thrill-ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat until its finale.
Military Doctor/Virologist/Researcher Sam Daniels (Two-Time Oscar Winner:Dustin Hoffman) finds out, there's an new deadly virus from Africa is been captured in a small rural California town.
Now his team (Oscar-Winner:Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Two-Time Oscar-Winner:Kevin Spacey) comes to help Sam to find the host of the virus, including Sam's ex-wife (Rene Russo).
***Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, and Cuba Gooding Jr.An ex-couple must stop a very contagious disease from spreading from the United States, to the whole world.
But can they contain it?The cast is to die for: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Donald Sutherland.
The story involves a CDC team led by Hoffman, which includes Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Goding Jr., trying to track down the source of a deadly new virus in order to develop a vaccine.
Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Patrick Dempsey, and Donald Sutherland, all of them in a movie??
However the cast is great including stars like Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman.This movie is about a doctor in the military who is supposed to control deadly diseases.
We've had the scare of bird flu since and if you let yourself think too much, well, don't!There's quite a cast - Dustin Hoffman, who is/was married to Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and Cuba Gooding Jnr. Oh, and Donald Sutherland crops up creepily as a military chief with a nasty streak.
It soon becomes evident to US Army doctor of Infectious Diseases Sam Daniels, Dustin Hoffman, and his good friend Gen. Billy Ford, Morgan Freeman, that this virus is something that was developed in secret by the CIA With the help of Gen. Donald McClintock, Donald Sutherland.
It has an all star cast which includes Donald Sutherland, Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Dale Dye, J.T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr. Patrick Dempsey, and Kevin Spacey!