Chain of Command (2000)

Director:

John Terlesky

Writer:

T.L. Lankford (writer)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Thriller

Plot:

Secret Service agents must retrieve the briefcase allowing the President control of America's nuclear arsenal before massive destruction ensues.

Plot Keywords:

Asian Woman | Mole | Adultery | Blackmail | Assassination Attempt

Cast

Roy Scheider	...	President Jack Cahill
Patrick Muldoon	...	Special Agent Michael Connelly
Maria Conchita Alonso	...	Vice President Gloria Valdez
Michael Biehn	...	Craig Thornton
Ric Young	...	Ken Fung
Sung Hi Lee	...	Iris
William R. Moses	...	Agent Gary Phillips
Tom Wright	...	Agent Burke
Philip Tan	...	Wu
Michael Mantell	...	David Lehmann
Byron Field	...	Lt. Southern
John Putch	...	Agent Joe Lambert
Pat Skipper	...	Agent Ellroy
Francis Maikai	...	Ting
Herb Mitchell	...	Admiral Harrington

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language and brief sexuality.

Runtime:

Germany:96 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Argentina:16 | Germany:16 (video premiere) | UK:15 | USA:R | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

RMS Queen Mary - 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, California, USA

Company:

Chain of Command Inc.

Trivia:

The shots of the ocean liner blowing up are stock footage from Deep Rising (1998).

Goofs:

Continuity: The distance traveled by the American and Chinese ICBM's in the final attack changes between shots.

Movie Connections:

Features Deep Rising (1998)

An implausible story

I at first thought this little fantasy excursion would be a little entertaining. I was wrong.

A good cast (Roy Scheider as the president) didn't help it any. The story had every conceivable possible worst-case scenario that could take place in a terrorist nuclear disaster. And none of it could POSSIBLY happen!

True -- the kidnapping of the President could only be accomplished with the inside help of a traitor in the Secret Service (ala Air Force One), but everything they depicted regarding the FOOTBALL and the helplessness of our country if were to fall into enemy hands is ludicrous to the Nth degree. Seriously, not even the President can fully over-ride our missile control. The case is only used to relay orders. In this situation, our system would have completely deleted the codes and the whole thing would go nowhere. The destruction of Beijing couldn't happen -- there would not have been a missile launch because the silo-crews would have been instructed not to (communications include a hardwired system). There are just too many safe-guards to prevent such a thing from happening.

True, film's like FAIL-SAFE and STRANGELOVE gave some credibility to the concept of us losing control of THE SYSTEM. But this film goes too far and fails to suspend my concept of the unbelievable. And that makes the experience a waste of the viewer's time. This film is a failure.