Subject: REVIEW: OUTBREAK

From: [email-masked] (Ram Samudrala)
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 16:46:47 GMT

OUTBREAK
		       A film review by Ram Samudrala
			Copyright 1995 Ram Samudrala

     OUTBREAK is almost like a Robin Cook novel (I do believe he wrote
a different novel with the same name), but at least Cook would've
gotten the science part of this thriller right.  The deadly Motaba
virus is out loose in a small town in CA.  Dustin Hoffman and his
ex-wife Rene Russo are army doctors who are trying to stop the virus.
The solution according to the screen writers, who're clearly are not
well versed in immunology at all, is to obtain "anti-serum" from the
carrier of the virus, which happens to be an African monkey that has
been transported to California.  The reason I question the scientific
premise is because you cannot simply take the antibodies the monkey
might have and inject into a human and assume it will work (not to
mention the fact that they produce litres of this stuff)!  They throw
words like ELISA (Enzyme Linked ImmunoSensitive Assay) around but yet
they show this insulting ignorance.

     What is interesting, however, is the conspiracy plot that is
thrown into this movie.  A different strain of the Motaba virus was
earlier discovered by the army and an antibiotic (?) was developed
against it, but with the help of two doctors, Morgan Freeman and Donald
Sutherland (who's once again the classic villain), the government keeps
the antibiotic a secret so they can use the virus as a biological
weapon.  When the new strain is discovered by Hoffman in Africa, the
army wants to do a similar thing, which would mean sacrificing the
lives of 2600 people in the town.

     I find this subplot interesting primarily because it once again
shows how people in power abuse it.  You do not impose a quarantine
with hundreds of soldiers equipped with semi-automatic rifles.  Nor do
you randomly kill people when they try to resist under a stressful
situation.  But I wonder what the government would do in a situation
like that.  And what would you do if you were a citizen of the town
that the government decided to impose curfews on, etc.?  How would you
defend yourself?  It is scary to think that the government, on a whim,
has the power to make any environment you're in totally Orwellian.

     Still, it wasn't a bad movie.  The helicopter scenes are cool and
Hoffman and Sutherland do have their moments.

--Ram
Ram Samudrala