The Peacemaker

I just watched The Peacemaker and loved it. I don't think there's a topic for it here so I started this one. Have you seen it and what did you think?

I liked it, got it on DVD, but Gee makes a good military man, has the right build. Nicole wasn't so good, the week female role, but overall, when Gee leaps over the car roofs, and does his "I'll save you" thing, I go weak at the knees! I think there was extras on mine. Well worth getting!

I thought that was one of his best. The girl he was, I guess, "banging" in the beginning of the movie was Judy Greer, the actress who played his wife in "The Descendents."

I have it on DVD ...I don't remember any banging in it...are you thinking of Three Kings cindigirl where she is on his knees on a chair....

I got my movies mixed up Merlin. Yes, that was Three Kings, not the Peacemaker,.

I agree Merlin defo 3 Kings. Peacemaker was a little early for Gee's "bangin" days! I don't think he even gets it on with Nicole?

Yay, thanks for starting this topic!

It took me years to get round to watching this and I was a little disappointed when I did. It seemed kind of formulaic and Nicole Kidman just didn't seem the right person for the part.

It was the first ever film by Dreamworks so I think I was hoping for something a little bit special.

Enjoyed George as a military man,Nicole seemed a little to soft for a with her job.

LOVED George in Peacemaker!!!

It's the uniform, isn't it Mel?

It's the uniform he looks good and does lots of running around. I do like the pool scene in it though would have liked it more if George was the one in the pool I think it didn't do as well as anyone thought Nicole was not a great choice but it was her Tom days and could get lots of publicity! I just didn't get any real chemistry between George and Nicole which was part of the problem.

I liked the bit where he runs across the tops of the cars....cool!

And by strange coincidence...his replacement in ER Luka...has a small part in it

So, who wants to see George in uniform?

Here goes:

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Thanks Katie for posting. Second and third picture - YUM

The story was too simple but the uniform saved it all.

Welcome Jules!


Katie, ya just had to kill me, didn't ya???!!!!! Yummy!

Hooaahh!! FYI – the saying “Hooaahh” is a version of HUA, an acronym standing for Heard, Understood, Acknowledged. I had to use that word! And yes he looks good in a uniform! YUMMY!

And, Welcome Jules!

These were the Celine years, lucky woman!

Would have been extreme eye candy to him naked then, lol.

I didn't like this movie at all but I can't stand Nicole Kidman. I do love those pics though.

Just found this over at AMC Blog

Story Notes for The Peacemaker

Award Note
George Clooney and Nicole Kidman are both Oscar winners: Clooney for Syriana and Kidman for The Hours.

Biographical Notes
This was the first movie directed by Mimi Leder. A respected TV director, she had already worked with George Clooney on ER.

Leder is one of a small handful of female directors in the action genre. Notably, there's also Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and Mary Harron (American Psycho).

Kidman has been a dramatic actress since she enrolled in acting school at 10 years old.

Clooney and Kidman were both raised Catholic. Clooney was an altar boy.

Leder's next movie was the 1998 blockbuster Deep Impact. It was the highest-grossing movie by a female director until Twilight took the title, in 2008.

Clooney's and Kidman's careers took off after this. She starred in Moulin Rouge! and The Others, and he starred in Ocean's Eleven, Up in the Air, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Casting Notes
General Kodoroff is played by Moscow native Aleksandr Baluev.

By 1997, Kidman was a big star from movies like Dead Calm, To Die For, and Batman Forever.

Actor Holt McCallany famously started the chant "His name is Robert Paulson" in Fight Club.

This movie was Clooney's first political thriller. He's made many since, including Three Kings, Syriana, and Michael Clayton.

In 1997, Clooney was making the transition from TV star (on ER) to movie star. This movie helped establish him as a leading man in Hollywood.

Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Colonel Devoe's Russian counterpart, Dimitri Vertikoff. The year before this, he was nominated for an Oscar for playing an abusive father in Shine.

Mueller-Stahl is a legendary European actor. In 1976, he protested denaturalization and was blacklisted by the East German government.

Dietrich is played by Alexander Strobele. His character is German, but he's actually Austrian.

You may recognize actor Michael Boatman from Spin City and Gossip Girl.

One of the soldiers at the roadblock also starred in ER, after Clooney left: Goran Visnjic.

Actor Gary Werntz is the husband of Leder.

Randall Batinkoff is familiar from movies like School Ties and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Gossip Note
While Clooney and Kidman never got romantically involved, they did go out dancing at 2 a.m.

History Notes
This movie takes place in the mid-nineties, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

When the Cold War ended, in 1989, the USSR collapsed, and Eastern Europe fell into disarray.

The strategic arms reduction talks (START) helped remove 80 percent of the world's nukes.

The worst train crash in history took place in France, in 1917. The train was carrying 1,000 soldiers.

Shamil Basayev was a real-life Chechen rebel leader who was killed in 2006.

Sarajevo hosted the winter Olympics in 1984.

IFOR was NATO's peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-nineties.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The grenade launcher was first developed during World War I by the Russians.

IFOR was only active from 1995 to 1996. By the time this came out, it was absorbed by SFOR. SFOR, also created by NATO, stands for Stabilisation Force.

The Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995 followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

This movie takes place before Hurricane Katrina and the notorious FEMA debacle.

Before 9/11, it was unusual to see so many heavily armed soldiers in Manhattan.

Since 9/11, at least 30 terrorist attacks have been foiled in the U.S.

How-to Note
To call or fax a U.S. number from outside the country, you must dial 001 first.

Location Notes
They filmed the train scene in Slovakia near the Polish border.

They scouted many churches in New York to film one scene. Most said no when they learned the movie had to do with terrorists.

Music Notes
Composer Hans Zimmer has scored over 100 movies, including Gladiator, Inception, and The Dark Knight. He also composed music for Broken Arrow, another movie about loose nuclear weapons.

Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 1, by Frédéric Chopin, 1844. Chopin dedicated this song to his pupil Jane Stirling. This pupil is Hannah Werntz, Leder's daughter.

Pop-Culture Note
"You've got mail" is a trademark AOL notification, as well as a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie.

Quotation Notes
Jessica Stern of the NSC said in 1997 that The Peacemaker was "chillingly realistic. [It's a real] possibility that nuclear warheads could be stolen in transit."

Kidman says of Clooney, "We felt very relaxed together. He was a lot of fun."

Leder on her international cast and crew: "Film has only one language."

Clooney: "I'll tell you fantasy fulfillment: I got to go out with stunt drivers in $100,000 Mercedes and smash into seven different BMWs. That's a blast."

Leder: "I didn't approach this as an action movie but instead as a dramatic human story."

Leder: "I want people to come away from this film entertained but also jolted into the reality that it's a big world out there and it's vulnerable."

This movie's unique for its sympathetic enemy. The director says, "You can't hate him. Moral ambiguity is what attracted me to the script and to his character."

Random Notes
Werntz tells this joke: "A husband and wife lie in bed when there's a knock at the door. 'It's my husband!' she shouts, and he jumps out the window. As he falls, he thinks, 'Wait, who am I?'"

Script Note
This story was inspired by an article about nuclear-weapons smuggling in the former USSR. It was called "One Point Safe," after the feature that prevents nukes from being set off by accident.

Set Notes
Unlike their characters, Clooney and Kidman got along very well on and off the set. In fact, Clooney, a notorious prankster, never pulled a prank on Kidman, out of respect.

Clooney was used to doing long takes from his five seasons on ER.

Clooney was so starstruck by Mueller-Stahl that he kept offering to get him coffee on set.

Paddy Carson was the name of Leder's assistant on the movie.

Clooney learned stunt driving for this movie.

Clooney learned to rappel out of a helicopter for this part. He found it "fun and weird and scary."

Clooney did most of his own stunts. The director calls him "fearless."

Symbolism Note
Hear the TV? The Jeopardy! contestant just chose the category "Half-Brothers."

Technology Notes
Sound for this movie was done by Andy Nelson, who won an Oscar for Saving Private Ryan.

It's highly unlikely that satellites would happen to capture images of the train collision. They would have to be focused on that location at that exact moment.

The NMCC coordinates nuclear subs, recon aircraft, and launch-control centers worldwide.

The NMCC maintains the famous "red telephone" connecting the U.S. to Russia.

Satellites orbit the Earth, so they can't maintain a fixed view.

A radiation detector locates high-energy particles like those produced by nuclear decay.

The blast itself isn't the biggest threat. The radiation would be devastating.

The timer is set to detonate the explosive packaging around the plutonium core. It must all detonate simultaneously to trigger a nuclear reaction.

Detonating the panels unevenly will prevent the core from achieving critical mass.

Trivia Notes
The Peacemaker was the first movie ever released by movie studio DreamWorks SKG. SKG stands for company founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen.

Kartaly is located 1,100 miles east of Moscow, near Russia's border with Kazakhstan.

In the nineties, Kartaly was home to 48 nuclear missiles. Now there are none.

Night-vision goggles are made by putting an image-intensifier tube in a hard casing.

Russian special forces are called Spetsnaz.

SS-18s are nicknamed "Satan" missiles by NATO for their deadly payload.

The Ural Mountains are a 1,300-mile range in the heart of Russia that separates Europe from Asia.

The Ural Mountains, in the heart of Russia, are rich in minerals and active with mining, metallurgy, and machine building.

The "yield" is the amount of energy discharged when a nuclear weapon is detonated.

Hazmat suits not only shield radiation but also prevent the inhalation of toxic gases.

Russian is the most widespread language in Eurasia.

"Fallout" is the radioactive result of a nuclear explosion.

The executive seal implies that this is Air Force One.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a federally funded research center in California.

The first CD ever released was Billy Joel's 52nd Street, in 1982.

LeRoy Neiman is an American artist famous for painting athletes and sporting events.

David Hasselhoff is very popular in Germany both as an actor and a pop singer.

Technically, no glass is completely bulletproof. It can only be bullet resistant

Very interesting factoids, Katie. Didn't even realize The Peacemaker was on until after it was over when I logged back into COH. Was watching NCIS & NCIS Los Angeles after ET, so didn't get back on until after 10 est. Hate when they chop it up anyway. Rather put the DVD in and see it all with NO ADS.

Thanks for posting the factoids. I watched most of The Peacemaker and this was the first time I saw all the interesting facts flashing on the bottom of the screen.

I missed a lot of the movie because I was hearing this beeping in my condo and walked from room to room trying to find it (much like George in his "quest" at Joel Steinberg's house). Anyway I finally found it, it was the carbon monxide device that needed batteries. LOL

pattygirl wrote:Very interesting factoids, Katie. Didn't even realize The Peacemaker was on until after it was over when I logged back into COH. Was watching NCIS & NCIS Los Angeles after ET, so didn't get back on until after 10 est. Hate when they chop it up anyway. Rather put the DVD in and see it all with NO ADS.

I prefer watching it on DVD too, especially like the deleted and behind the scenes. And I can skip to the juicy George parts. I've seen it a few times and each time I catch something interesting that I didn't see before. Very interesting, almost true story and Mimi Ledger is a great director.

I agree wholeheartedly. Love him in a uniform, dress or cami, doesn't matter. Always sharp. As good as in a tux.

I like the set notes!! George stunt driving and to rappel out of a helicopter,... I would have liked to see the scenes training

The set notes are a hell of a lot more interesting than the movie.

Not a fan of the movie at all. I thought it was garbage.

I wouldn't say garbage, but I didn't think it was particularly good.

I thought the movie was good story, action sequences were great, no real chemistry between Nicole and George. Nicole may be a good actress but I feel she's kind of cold, reminds me of Grace Kelly, cold and aloof.

Because George didn't 'prank" her on the set it makes me believe he just wasn't too comfortable with her. They said it was because he had too much respect for her, but I don't buy that. Yes she is sort of an "ice queen", but I think she's beautiful, plastic surgery and all. LOL

And moving this one to the right thread too. I love all the contributions, but please do me a favour and CHECK if there's already a thread before starting a new one?

I am finding the film threads, but thought the video would be a new topic within the film threads, as there are sometimes more than one topic in each film thread to start with.
Also thought the trailer would be missed, so there was a bit of a method
in my madness. LOL
But will pop them into what's there for the next ones.

I loved this movie. George has said it was one of his least favorites, but I beg to differ!!

Watching The Peacemaker for the first time. Not a fan of Kidman in this and agree with what's been said about her re: no chemistry; ice queen, etc.

George is one sexy hunk of male in uniform! On an acting level, he's Goerge playing George iMO. But hey, I like George, so I'm liking the eye candy.

Look what I found !

Well, how cool is that! There's an option to watch one with Malkovich and George on a couch all dressed in white with two girls. It's funny and one I've never seen.

They've got their own thread here


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Yes, I found it after i posted my response. Thanks, JoJo!

I love the name of this movie! I wonder how many Peacemakers were made. Makes you wonder!

sorry Lakin
but your last avatar pic is
horrible !

Photoshop...

it's me wrote:sorry Lakin
but your last avatar pic is
horrible !

What's the problem? Don't you like cowboys???

Oh my dear, I know. It is a terrible shot of our beloved George! But that's why I chose it. He's not perfect. I'm not perfect. No one is and I like to keep it real.

Hang in there....as soon as I find something better, I'll change it. Got any full frontal shots?

Remember when George put up that picture of Don Cheadle, nekkid chest with the cowboy hat, at George's American Cinematheque Gala Tribute? I wonder if Don knows about your avatar pic Lakin. Now, if he would have a western shirt on (or no shirt!!!), he'd look more handsome. However, I like this!

full frontal shot?
..... maybe

Go i m.. got pics...lol

tonight
on Rete 4
Italian channel

Many George movies lately on Italian TV...I have to move countries  

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The Peacemaker
You know what? It's alright this. The Peacemaker is notable as the first movie ever released under the DreamWorks banner, and for all its occasional daftness, it's an entertaining thriller, with a nuclear bent to it. George Clooney and Nicole Kidman headline the film, one that was beset by problems . The end result is better than much commercial fare that bubbled to the top of the box office towards the back end of the 1990s. No classic, but entertaining.