Word: lemmon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Lemmon, through the sheer integrity of his playing −no cute stuff, no obvious plays for sympathy −is outstanding as an essentially lonely man who has built his life around his dials and gauges, and then learns that they have been programmed from the start to deceive...
That's what almost happens the day a television news team-Reporter Jane Fonda, Cameraman Michael Douglas −takes a routine tour of a nuclear power plant. They're in the visitors' gallery, looking into the control room presided over by Veteran Engineer Jack Lemmon, when everyone down there starts falling madly about. Some sort of crisis is obviously at hand. Ordered not to shoot...
Meantime, something parallel is happening to Technocrat Lemmon. He has always been a believer not only in nuclear power but also in the elaborate Fail-Safe system that makes its peaceful use feasible. Now, however, his superiors push him a little too hard to get the disabled plant back on line faster than he thinks it should be. He also discovers that the contractors who built the plant have falsified vital safety certificates. But even as he's getting on to them, they're getting on to him−no way anyone's going to let fraudulent...
...that may sound improbably melodramatic, but it plays just fine. The credit belongs in part to Director Bridges for his sure handling of the action and in part to a script that makes us really care for Fonda and Lemmon. It seems almost superfluous to praise Fonda anew, but she is truly at the peak of her talent these days. Nobody has done a better characterization of the vacuity of the TV news "personality" −the little moments of makeup-mirror vanity snatched against deadline pressure, the falseness of on-camera performances that must never really look like performances...
...Lemmon, as a former nuclear submarine officer caught in the utility company's middle management, does an excellent job of portraying Godell's belief in "the system" and its safety. Realizing that higher management executives have tampered with his sacred safety procedures and have perverted the reactor that he, with complete sincerity, says he loves, Lemmon's portrayal of Godell's personal struggle carries the film...