esides sounding like The Pacemaker, which would be a lot less interesting movie, I'm not sure why this film wasn't more successful.  It looks great, has two big stars, and wasn't that poorly-reviewed. Yet it only made $41m when released in 1998.

I didn't see it then, and I didn't see it on video.  I only saw it when it was on one of the major TV networks in early 2002, but I found it compelling enough to sit through the commercials and keep watching it, which is very unusual for me.

It's basically a James Bond movie with less going on that's therefore a lot more realistic.  There are stolen Russian nukes, attempts to smuggle them to some other unknown country, high tech intercept efforts, chases around the world, arguing commanders, and the eventual cat and mouse nuke chase around NYC.  It does not have the glib humor (or attempts at it, anyway) of the typical Bond film, and there's no sex or charismatic super villain.  I actually preferred the villain they had, since he was nuts and haunted by inner demons of his slaughtered wife and child, and the bad guys didn't have a secret base with private moon shuttle flights, or own half the world, etc.  They were small timers working on their own, trying to make a huge thing happen against the odds.  The good guys had the resources and the battle was on their home turf; a much more realistic scenario than the typical James Bond thing with him alone in some underground metropolis entirely-filled with the bad guys' henchmen.

The main conflict, besides the nuke-smuggling terrorist, is between Clooney and Kidman.  She's a by the book high-ranking intelligence official.  He's some sort of special forces army colonel, very "cowboy" and wanting to just take off and do things.  He has past history with the head bad guy terrorist's security officer, so there's a personal angle there as well.

There is the inevitable scene where Kidman has to give the okay to launch a big risky mission that Clooney really wants to charge off on.  And she goes against her training and is won over by his enthusiasm and the seriousness of the situation.  It turns out to be somewhat of a disaster, in an example of the relatively intelligent script/plot.

Overall, the movie was a lot smarter than the average spy thriller.  Not a series of improbable and physics-defying escapades like a Bond movie, and not just one lone guy able to do anything and everything.

I did not know the movie was on, and only happened upon it in a rare moment of channel surfing.  I clicked to it when there was a car chase, more like a car battle, in some quaint city square in Italy or some country that looks like it.  There were two or three cars of bad guys chasing Clooney and Kidman in their one car.  What caught my eye was not the screeching tires, but that the scene starts with Kidman diving between the front and back seat, for no apparent reason.

Well actually the reason was apparent, it was because she had a mini-skirt on and it gave them a chance to show several lingering shots of her upper thighs as she wriggled around.  It was about the only sex appeal in the entire film, at least until the very end (see below) but given that I have somewhat of a vested interest in Nicole's thighs, I was interested enough to stay with it.

The car scene was interesting since it started as a chase, but ended as a demolition derby, with Clooney destroying both of the terrorist's cars in semi-realistic fashion.  Through the whole movie Clooney's character was well done.  Very strong and competent and street smart.  Able to take full advantage of the technology and opportunities he had available, and using realistic tactics and technology, rather than some magical gizmo, like Bond.

There is a nice scene at the end where they are after the terrorist in NYC.  They spend some time figuring out that he's actually in the country, how he might have gotten in, talking about the lack of sufficient radiation detectors to pick up the nuke in NYC, etc.  They get to his hotel room just after he's left, which Clooney figures out by feeling his plate of room service eggs and seeing that they are still warm.  Nice touch.

Then ensues a frantic chase as they try to spot the guy and his cargo somewhere in Manhattan, as he's approaching the UN.  It's well done with cars of cops and military everywhere, streets being closed off just a minute too late, huge traffic jams, multiple snipers scanning the masses of people, and the eventual mad chase after he's spotted.

The biggest failing of the film is that Nicole does nothing. She wears a lot of suits and snaps off orders, but why hire one of the most beautiful women in acting and put her in pants suits for two hours?  She does have that one mini-skirt in the car bit, but that was clearly a stretch.  No shower scenes, no ripped dresses, none of the normal movie invention to show off the sexy female.

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