The Peacemaker

Who remembers The Peacemaker (1997)? It was, as you’ve doubtless forgotten the first offering from DreamWorks – the new Hollywood studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. 

They were three of the biggest names in the entertainment firmament. They were going to tear up the old, stale, Hollywood production system and create multimedia entertainment fit for the new millennium. Then they gave us The Peacemaker (1997). A beige little film that was a triumph only of blandness. Oh dear. 

Opening in a church in war-torn Bosnia we witness a mysterious assassination. Next, we see a rogue Russian general stealing a train loaded with nuclear warheads. He plans to use them to obliterate the UN building in New York. The only people that can stop him are nuclear scientist (Nicole Kidman) and a maverick, special forces soldier (George Clooney). 

All of which sounds like familiar thriller territory and not the new dawn in entertainment DreamWorks had promised. Aside from the cooker-cutter storyline, it’s the protagonists - poorly constructed plastic characters - that really grate here. The two leads are textbook ‘chalk and cheese’ characters who struggle to relate to each other before predictably realising that they hold the same values underneath.

That would be fine, but the problem is that both leads fail even to make the grade of functional stereotypes. Clooney, supposedly a roguish, maverick army lieutenant (as if such a thing exists) simply comes across as a solid, dependable, military man. More John Major than John Rambo.

Kidman’s character is just as poorly constructed. After witnessing Clooney kill a bad guy, she is initially shocked and traumatised. Minutes later, she's gazing moodily out of a car window, wearing her best ‘Am I bovvered’ expression as George mechanically mows down a vehicle full of terrorists.

In fact, Clooney and Kidman appear to be acting in totally different films – neither of them particularly good. 

Anyway, to the main business at hand: the exploding helicopter. Chasing the rogue General, Clooney and his special forces extras, sorry I mean team, have to illegally enter Russian airspace in three helicopters. The Russkies activate their air defences and fire a surface-to-air missile that neatly catches the middle chopper plum on the nose. “Instant chopper fireball,” as Alan Partridge would say.

Artistic merit 

It’s a good explosion, with the chopper clinically picked off before plummeting out of sight. Disappointingly though, the camera doesn’t linger on the devastation and simply moves on. Director Mimi Leder clearly isn’t an exploding helicopter enthusiast.

Exploding helicopter innovation

None. I think it’s fair to say surface-to-air missiles have knocked out many a rotor blade, probably quite a few over Russian airspace.

Positives 

The Peacemaker is a monument to the fact that no-one is perfect. It’s nice to know that, like the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet, Clooney and Kidman also have things they are probably ashamed of. 

Negatives 

In one scene we get to see Clooney in shapeless cream slacks and a baggy polo shirt. Even an action star like Sir Roger Moore in his prime 007 pomp would have baulked at that.

Three Kings

I was talking to a friend the other day and saying that I really needed to get more war movies on the site. Any post-Vietnam war film has got to be a rich source of helicopter explosions.

So with fortuitous timing Three Kings (1999) turned up on TV. It’s set just after the first Gulf War in 1991. A ceasefire is in place and the coalition forces are getting ready to return home.

As they administer the surrender of Iraqi troops four soldiers come into possession of map detailing a buried stash of stolen gold. With a return to the drudgery of their day jobs the soldiers decide that liberating the bullion will be more rewarding than liberating Kuwait.

The four soldiers - played by George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze – head out into the desert to track down the gold. Along the way they have run-ins with the remnants of the Iraqi army, freedom fighters and a journalist intent on filing at least one decent story.

Now I always love watching films to see how they attempt to slip something into the story that will later turn out to be key to the plot. Take for example Die Hard which, alongside beginning with a near flawless piece of character exposition, explains why Bruce Willis spends the rest of the film running around in bare feet.

At their worst these types of plot devices are ball-achingly painful. Usually when the director doesn’t trust the audience to pick up on the detail and draws out attention to it with all the subtlety of a knee-capping.

Fortunately the one in Three Kings, whilst by no means perfect, is certainly at the superior end of the scale and, most excitingly for me, central to the films helicopter explosion.

So in an early scene we see the four mismatched soldiers driving out into the desert in a truck. A couple of them are goofing around in the back trying to shoot American footballs which they’re throwing out the back while Ice Cube and Spike Jonze argue about the merits of black quarterbacks.

The plausibility of the scene has already been set-up by conversations earlier in the film about how little action they’d seen as part of the conflict. And with Spike Jonze’s white trash cracker character established you can believe it when he straps an explosive to one of the footballs that he throws out the back.

While the scene makes sense within its self, it’s too distinctive to for you to think the exploding footballs won’t make a reappearance later. Sure enough it does when one of the exploding balls is dropped down a ventilation shaft.

Is that the last we’ve seen them of them though? No. Because when an Iraqi helicopter attacks their position. Ice Cube takes to the roof of the building they’re in armed with one of the exploding footballs which he pitches at the cockpit of the chopper. Touchdown!



Artistic merit

Director David O. Russell doesn’t fumble the ball. He goes the whole ten yards with this helicopter explosion.  Slow motion, multiple angles of the explosion and then when the shattered fuselage crashes into the ground it blows up again. I have nothing but the highest praise for how Russell lingers over destruction of this chopper.

Exploding helicopter innovation

You not seriously telling me you’ve seen another film where they’ve used an exploding American football to blow-up a helicopter are you?

Positives

This is one of those rare beasts – an action film which is both fun and intelligent. The premise of the plot has a lot in common with Kelly’s Heroes. But the plot’s always got a new twist that it’s ready to throw at you to keep you interested. The scripts also got a nice line in subversive humour.

I particularly liked how the political context of the Gulf War is cleverly used in this film. With the civil divisions between the Shia population and Sunni ruling elite adding both a dramatic element to the plot but also providing a subtle commentary on the consequences of this conflict on the Iraqi people themselves.

Negatives

You know what I really can’t think of one.

Favourite quote

“What was that?”
“I rigged a football with C4 sir.”
“Why would you do that?”

Interesting fact

The plot to Three Kings has more than a passing resemblance to Kelly’s Heroes starring Clint Eastwood. Interestingly the part was originally intended for Clint Eastwood but director Russell wanted a younger actor. Nicholas Cage was also considered before Clooney was cast.

Review by: Jafo

Still want more? Then check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Three Kings. Listen on iTunes, Podomatic, Stitcher or YourListen