By Dawn’s Early Light (1990) – Well-Intentioned Apocalyptic Thriller

 

At times a film comes along that is timely. At times the film is strangely out of place given the contemporary happenings. By Dawn’s Early Light is both, especially when you consider when it was made.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLtRIwMqxY

 

In 1990, when the TV movie was released, tumultuous events were shaping a new world.  The Wall, a symbol of the East-West divide, had fallen. Not by military might but by a combination of Political mistakes and People’s will. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union would simply fade away into history. 

 

The film feels current to the 1990 “post-Cold War world” yet warns of zealous right-wing foaming at-the-mouth Civil-Military nexus taking control and not heeding reality. The film serves as a warning about warmongers. Some might think this is very “left-wing” but hardly so.  No less than President Eisenhower had warned the American public about the nexus of the “Military-Industrial Complex” (check at 2:00)

https://youtu.be/cyZoUfNsUl8

 

Given the exposition of various technologies and the checks and balances in the system, it is more of a cautionary tale. Or at least tries to act as one.

 

As the story unfolds, the President of the USA is alive though blinded by the flash of a thermonuclear bomb fired automatically by the Russians in response to an “American nuclear attack”. The American President has no choice but to set the mechanism in motion of responding and raising the DEFCON level. The Russian President implores the American President not to respond as the nuclear attack was by some rogue elements.

The Americans respond. The Air Force B52 scramble. The Navy submarines go deep and await orders for launching. The pilots of one B52 approaching the Russian border are wrestling with a “Go or No-Go” task while the procedure is clear – to Go! The duo also has a “history.”

 

Apocalyptic thrillers are, by and large, divided into two broad styles. The first one is invariably about military men and their civilian counterparts struggling with the technology of war and its consequences. The second one is about post-apocalypse survivors and their problems. The entire Cold War technology is just a tool – a frightening tool – to further the political ambitions of the Civilians.

In this case, the USA and its war-like military have to contend with a “dovish” President (Martin Landau), blinded by a thermonuclear bomb’s flash while being evacuated from The White House by helicopter. Since his whereabouts are unknown, the procedure kicks in. The military locates the Vice President and airlifts him into the “KneeCap”, the Boeing 747 specially configured as an airborne command post for nuclear war. The Vice president, an otherwise weak-willed man, thinks it’s his destiny to wipe the Soviet Union off the world map. He starts listening more and more to his hawkish military advisers. There is another KneeCap with a commander codenamed Alice – James Earl Jones of Darth Vader’s voice fame – which is listening to the blinded President and is trying to prevent the VP from carrying out the orders by talking to the pilot and the staff. 

 

In the meantime, the B52, on its way to the Soviet Union’s border, has its own problems. The male pilot and his female co-pilot have a “history” of a troubled on-off relationship, which starts clouding their judgment – or so the male pilot Cassidy (Powers Boothe) thinks. His female co-pilot Moreau (Rebecca de mornay) feels otherwise, trying to balance the professional and the personal. They are but a small cog in a gigantic mechanism, trained to wipe out any fame of humanity – pun intended – while protecting “the free way of life”.

 

Cliches abound. The blinded but “decent” President. The Hawkish mad General in the second KneeCap. The “Obedient duty-bound Decent General” in the first KneeCap. The “weak Vice president” bent on nuclear glory. The feuding couple of the B52 on a one-way mission. Their crew coming unhinged as they know there is “nothing to return to”.

 

 The same premise was repeated on a much bigger scale in Crimson Tide (1995), except that it was set in a nuclear missile-carrying submarine whose commanders are in total disagreement as to what to do since communication is lost with the national command authority (NCA) – in other words, the President and his cabinet.

 

Here, the NCA is there but is divided between the President and the weak-willed Vice President. The dynamics in both cases call for their own set of cinematic cliches. Alice is fully committed to his work and will “push the button” but not without reason, while the Vice President will push the button because it is there! So, you have the typical cliched good nuclear warriors versus evil nuclear warriors trope that is squeezed dry to extract all the possible juice that one can.

 

Having done the obligatory groaning and moaning with what’s wrong, why did I sit through the entire film? That too on YouTube? 

 

Simple. Even if it is predictable, it is absolutely engrossing. 

 

Lest anyone thinks this is a case of being “filmi”, here is a Wikipedia link to National Emergency Airborne Command Post – NEACP (colloquially known as KneeCap). 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

 

As you can see from the link, four specially configured Boeing 747s are airborne in the kind of crisis situations shown in the film. Especially when the DEFCON condition is high. On a scale of 5 to 1, 5 is the lowest threat level, while Defcon 1 is the highest. All these DEFCON levels, including Cocked Pistol, are shown accurately in the film. The code word Cocked Pistol means that nuclear weapons have been fired.  More about the DEFCON conditions in below link, and how close the two Superpowers came close to nuclear war is clear from the below link.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON

 

 The entire process and technology of nuclear war are frighteningly real, and the research behind it is thorough. There is a hat tip to the ultimate apocalyptic thriller, Dr. Strangelove, in that this one also has a B52 on a one-way mission. A strange coincidence is that James Earl Jones is one of the crew members of that B52, too (in Dr.Strangelove).

 

There is another nod to the other frightening nuclear thriller Fail Safe, where the US and Soviet presidents agree to mutually target each other’s cities because of a mistake.

 

As befitting a TV movie with a limited budget, the special effects are a bit cheesy but still adequate, especially when the B52 penetrates Soviet airspace and is hunted by Migs.

 

So how do you stop the rogue Vice President and his warmongering mad dog “bad generals”?  Hint : there are but two KneeCaps .  Watch the movie ; you will know how to bust a kneecap – pun intended  😊

 

 

Real History – 3 out of 5

Equipment / Kit – 4 out of 5

Locations/substitutes – 3 out of 5

Masala elements – 2 out of 5

 

Total – 3 out of 5