Outbreak (1995)

Director:

Wolfgang Petersen

Writers (WGA):

Laurence Dworet (written by) &
Robert Roy Pool (written by)

Release Date:

10 March 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Try to remain calm.

Plot:

Extreme measures are necessary to contain an epidemic of a deadly airborne virus. But how extreme, exactly?

Plot Keywords:

Virus | Disease | Monkey | General | River

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Dustin Hoffman	...	Col. Sam Daniels
Rene Russo	...	Robby Keough
Morgan Freeman	...	Brig. Gen. Billy Ford
Kevin Spacey	...	Maj. Casey Schuler
Cuba Gooding Jr.	...	Maj. Salt
Donald Sutherland	...	Maj. Gen. Donald McClintock
Patrick Dempsey	...	Jimbo Scott
Zakes Mokae	...	Dr. Benjamin Iwabi
Malick Bowens	...	Dr. Raswani
Susan Lee Hoffman	...	Dr. Lisa Aronson
Benito Martinez	...	Dr. Julio Ruiz
Bruce Jarchow	...	Dr. Mascelli
Leland Hayward III	...	Henry Seward
Daniel Chodos	...	Rudy Alvarez
Dale Dye	...	Lt. Col. Briggs

MPAA:

Rated R for language.

Runtime:

127 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Korean

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Philippines:PG-13 | New Zealand:M | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | Canada:AA (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Arcata, California, USA

Company:

Punch Productions

Trivia:

When investigating the village in Zaire several of the huts are burned down. This is the traditional tribal method for controlling the spread of an infection in many parts of the world. Food and water are left outside the entrance to the dwelling and the occupants cannot leave. If several days (usually 3 or 4) of these supplies are not used then the dwelling is burned down to stop the infection from spreading.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Blue suits used in level 4 laboratories have a special air supply. The sound this makes inside the suit is so loud that you cannot hear other people. The people at the starting scene of the movie communicates none the less during the first scenes in the level 4 laboratory. Yellow suits are pressurized via a small motor inside it and a set of batteries, but the yellow suits show no sign of being inflated at all, and when helmets are moved no air rushes out.

Quotes:

Colonel Sam Daniels: You know Salt, fear gets a bad rap. I don't want anybody in my outfit that doesn't get scared.
Major Salt: Then I'm your man sir.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Just Shoot Me!: Nina Sees Red: Part 2 (#3.15)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Days Of Wine And Roses

If the story had been more believable, this would have been a very good movie

Next to big volcano's erupting, hurricanes and other twisters, diseases are an excellent source of inspiration for the creators of disaster movies. Why? The answer is quite simple. We all know that diseases like Ebola and AIDS haven't always been among us, but that they were present somewhere on this planet. We don't know how it suddenly finds us, but it does. And since most of us are very scared of the unknown and we can be pretty sure that not everything has been discovered yet, movies based on this subject can be quite believable and scary.

When a new deadly disease is discovered in Africa, Colonel Sam Daniels of the U.S. Army is sent to investigate it. As soon as he returns he warns his boss, General Ford, that they should put out an alert on this virus, even though it is far away from the USA and not airborne. General Ford refuses, since it is contained and unlikely to show up. But what both men don't know is that a monkey, carrying the deadly virus with him, has been captured and is being shipped to the USA, where a man who works at the customs house takes it and tries to sell it to a pet store. But when the sale isn't closed, the man doesn't know what to do with the monkey and releases it in the woods near a small town in California. A few days later the man collapses and dies in Baltimore and at the same time a new outbreak is starting in that little Californian town. Colonel Daniels, his team and his ex-wife will do anything possible to find a cure so they can save the population from being bombed by the military, but what they don't know is that there may have been a cure all along...

Overall the story of this movie certainly isn't bad, but sometimes I started to find it all a bit too much. A new disease that mutates, that's possible. The army that wants to know more about it, there is nothing new about that. But than talking about military conspiracies, a president who wants to bomb his own people... that one I really didn't buy. And that's too bad, because I'm convinced that this could be a very powerful movie, if only they should have left out a couple of elements. Still, that's about the worst thing that I have to say about this movie. The acting for instance is OK. With people like Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland,... they have found themselves a very nice cast, which may well be the best reason why you should watch this movie, even when you aren't a fan of disaster movies (like me).

But not only the acting looks OK, so does the direction. With a man like Wolfgang Petersen, I immediately have some high expectations of course. He's the man that gave the world the ultimate submarine movie "Das Boot" and that always makes me hope for the best. Even though this movie never reaches to that extremely high level, it sure is better than average. The man still knows how to create the necessary tension and how to keep you interested. So, if it hadn't been for the not always so effective story, this movie would have scored very high on my list. Now I give it a 6.5/10 (which certainly isn't bad).