Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon (2002) (TV)

Director:

Daniel Percival

Writers:

Simon Chinn (writer)
Daniel Percival (writer)

Release Date:

2 January 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

It's all true. It just hasn't happened yet.

Plot:

A docu-drama that reports on a (fictitious) attack made by terrorist using the disease of small pox to attack the world...

Plot Keywords:

Disease | New York | Mass Grave | London England | Epidemic

Cast

Brian Cox	...	Narrator (voice)
Bolen High	...	Jack Hill
Leigh Zimmerman	...	Lesley Peters
Tara Hugo	...	Kathleen O'Reilly
Ben Chinn	...	New York Reporter
Sterling K. Brown	...	Carl Jocelyn
Edward Lewin	...	Sam Wiseman
Steven Crossley	...	Richard Benson
John Hug	...	Pierre Lefevre
Nadia Cameron-Blakey	...	Rachel Smits
Sudha Bhuchar	...	Dr. Farah Khanum
John Harding	...	Nigel Woods
Tom Cotcher	...	Chief Supt. Clive McAdams
Rowan Schlosberg	...	John Peters
Margot Knight	...	Nancy Peters

Also Known As:

Secret Futures: Smallpox (UK) (alternative title)
Smallpox (USA)

Runtime:

USA:120 min (including commercials)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:TV-14

Filming Locations:

Geneva, Canton de Genève, Switzerland

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

Three of the people appearing in this film were not actors but were, in fact, individuals who each played significant roles in the recent history of smallpox. Only one of these has his personal history recounted in any great detail, Ken Alibek (formerly Kanatjan Alibekov), who served as deputy director and chief scientist of the Soviet Union's biological warfare program, BioPreparat, from 1987 until 1992, when he left Russia for his native Kazakhstan and ultimately defected to the U.S. Of the other two, Christopher Davis served as part of a team of U.S. and British inspectors that toured the Soviet bioweapons lab at Koltsovo in January 1991. Questioning of Soviet technicians by Davis and one of his British colleagues gave the West their first real inkling (later confirmed after Alibek's defection) that the Soviets were experimenting with live smallpox virus. D.A. Henderson M.D. (full name, Donald Ainslie Henderson) is correctly identified in the special as director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness, a position he took up at the time of the office's creation in November 2001. From 1966 through 1977, he led the World Health Organization's campaign to eradicate smallpox worldwide. For this, he deserves more credit than perhaps anyone else alive for eliminating smallpox as an endemic disease.

Quotes:

Kathleen O'Reilly: We used to believe that the greatest threat to the United States were the nuclear arsenals of a rogue state, but in this world today, a terrorist with the will to sacrifice his own life, armed only with a penknife and a pilot's license, is capable of anything... The greatest threat, as we now know, is a single individual with a $50 chemistry set and the will to decimate the planet.

inaccurate Scaremongering.

I saw this a while ago and to be honest, I reckon that Messrs Chinn and Perceval have a lot to answer for.

This was broadcast a while after 9/11 and it's obviously scaremongering to whip tension (especially in the wake of the Anthrax scare) so In that way, I take a particularly dim view of this fake documentary.

Besides, why smallpox? If it was as contagious as it sounds then it would have run rampant during the middle ages onwards. (The most likely way to catch it would have been close and dare I say, irresponsible contact with a victim) This would have been better if it was made as a feature film as it would be more appropriate and responsible, besides, its out of date now isn't it? However, it was not without it's upsides as the drama was well portrayed, well documented and well thought up (despite it's plot holes and controversies).