The Peacemaker

UK Release Date. 24 October 1997
Certification. 15
Running Time. 2 hours 4 mins
Director. Mimi Leder
Cast. George Clooney, Marcel Iures, Nicole Kidman.
Rating. 48%

Review.

On 12 October 1994 Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen formed a new film production company, Dreamworks SKG. Two years later, the then-fledgling DreamWorks Pictures released its first feature-length film, The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.

George Clooney plays Colonel Thomas Devoe, an intelligence officer with the US Special Forces and Nicole Kidman plays Dr Julia Kelly, a nuclear weapons specialist working for the National Security Council. Off the back of the appalling Batman & Robin, Clooney regains some degree of respect with a competent enough performance, but Kidman fairs less well. In truth, the actress has a pretty thankless task; an intelligent, no-nonsense aide to the President who spends most of the film on the periphery of the action.

With a run time in excess of two hours, the film feels unnecessarily bloated and unwieldy. In fact, Nicole Kidman and George Clooney do not appear on screen until almost 20 minutes into the film, after, what seems like, an inordinately long opening prologue. The Peacemaker may have been a great deal more engaging had the script been tightened and the run time trimmed. It is difficult to sustain tension and suspense for over two hours, and the task proves too difficult for first-time director, Mimi Leder. A fact not helped by the director's unsubtle attempt to humanise the villain of the piece, Dusan Gavrich (Marcel Iures). Films like The Peacemaker need a simple, single-minded megalomaniac - like Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard, Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper) in Speed or Vic Deakins (John Travolta) in Broken Arrow - to succeed.

The Peacemaker is a banal, generic espionage thriller with little in the way of innovation. Of its time and instantly forgettable.