Christopher Collet plays Paul Stephens, a high school whiz kid with an aptitude for science who learns that a nuclear weapons facility has set up shop in his neck of the woods. Conspiring with his potential girlfriend (an adorable Cynthia Nixon), he manages to break into the facility and make off with some plutonium. This he uses to construct his very own atom bomb. He does this partly as a form of protest, but partly out of his own damn ego: he wants to show off.
Co-writer Marshall Brickman, who'd collaborated with Woody Allen on some of Allens' early pictures, turns serious with this topical thriller (shades of "WarGames") that does generate genuine tension. People have attacked it over the years due to dubious morality: are we really supposed to be rooting for this reckless kid? In the end, he's forced to work alongside the dopey adults whom he's trying to expose, as everybody tries to undo the damage he's done. Overall, the story is awfully hard to swallow much of the time, but eventually we get a suspenseful payoff. (The kid doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.)
In any event, the film *is* very slick, nicely scored (by Philippe Sarde), and excellently acted by a cast also including John Lithgow, Jill Eikenberry, John Mahoney, Robert Sean Leonard, Richard Jenkins, Sully Boyar, Timothy Carhart, Fred Melamed, Jimmie Ray Weeks, and Dan Butler.
It's an entertaining story in general, and some aspects (such as the details of constructing the bomb) are suitably engrossing. The feel-good ending, however, was too utterly ridiculous to believe.
Six out of 10.
Co-writer Marshall Brickman, who'd collaborated with Woody Allen on some of Allens' early pictures, turns serious with this topical thriller (shades of "WarGames") that does generate genuine tension. People have attacked it over the years due to dubious morality: are we really supposed to be rooting for this reckless kid? In the end, he's forced to work alongside the dopey adults whom he's trying to expose, as everybody tries to undo the damage he's done. Overall, the story is awfully hard to swallow much of the time, but eventually we get a suspenseful payoff. (The kid doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.)
In any event, the film *is* very slick, nicely scored (by Philippe Sarde), and excellently acted by a cast also including John Lithgow, Jill Eikenberry, John Mahoney, Robert Sean Leonard, Richard Jenkins, Sully Boyar, Timothy Carhart, Fred Melamed, Jimmie Ray Weeks, and Dan Butler.
It's an entertaining story in general, and some aspects (such as the details of constructing the bomb) are suitably engrossing. The feel-good ending, however, was too utterly ridiculous to believe.
Six out of 10.