By Dawn's Early Light (1990)
This was a fun movie. Not great by any means, and there's plenty not to like, but overall it is the kind of movie I enjoy watching. Essentially WWIII starts by accident, and a variety people do their part, or choose not to. It's kind of like Failsafe, but more technical and focusing more on the individuals involved. What makes the movie unique, while also being one of the problematic parts, is that in this case nukes have already landed in the US, and the goal is to keep the war limited rather than total, if it does turn out to be an accident. Interesting angle, but I found it kind of unbelievable. There was also a fascinating ethical dilemma; could we accept that one or two million Americans just got accidentally nuked without intentionally returning the favour by blowing up a equal number of equally innocent Rooskies. Unfortunately, this angle never got explored.
Martin Landau plays the president, trying to keep things under control while many, but not all, of his military advisors try to escalate things. When he's presumed killed power falls all the way to the secretary of the interior (Darren McGavin) who seems intent on being the president who "wins" the war. Kind of a dick, really. Generals and admirals all take sides, of course. James Earl Jones aboard looking glass, naturally siding with team "Let's stop this," and Rip Torne on team "Kill the bastards," advising the new hawkish president aboard Air Force 1. The other story involves Powers Boothe and Rebecca De Mornay as pilots of a B52 operating under emergency war orders. I didn't think either of them were great in their roles. Powers Boothe should be grittier than an air force pilot, and Rebecca De Mornay should be a lot less clothed. Casting and clothing not withstanding, their angle was probably the weak link of the movie for a variety of reasons. Mostly their part just wasn't written or acted very well.
A recurring theme in both this and The Day After was people well aware that their deaths had already been set in motion and carrying on until the very end. That's an interesting thing, of course. One thing I love in movies is a good death, and BDEL certainly had a few. Plenty of people trying to get their point across knowing that they have seven minutes, thirty two seconds left to live. You had fighter pilots resigned to crashing when their fuel was well short of enough to get them any place safe. You had one pilot desperately trying to Kamikaze another for the greater good, and the other pilot letting him do so for the same reason.
Like I said, fun, if not particularly good.