Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11249 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Chinese, English, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
James Bridges (Urban Cowboy, Bright Lights, Big City) directed this 1979 film that became a worldwide sensation when, just weeks after its release, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred. Jane Fonda (Klute, Julia) plays a television news reporter who is not taken very seriously until a routine story at the local nuclear power plant leads her to what may be a cover-up of epic proportions. She and her cameraman, played by Michael Douglas (Wall Street, American President), hook up with a whistleblower at the plant, played by Jack Lemmon (Save the Tiger, Missing). Together they try to uncover the dangers lurking beneath the nuclear reactor and avoid being silenced by the business interests behind the plant. Though topical, the film (produced by Douglas) works on its own as a socially conscious thriller that entertains even as it spurs its audience to think. --Robert Lane

DVD features
Laurent Bouzereau, the first guru of DVD-extras production, deftly pulls together the facts about this film some 25 years later in a two-part documentary. Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda scoop on how their two separate projects melded into this film, and key supporting players also weigh on the acting ensemble and the film's design. Unfortunately, two key players have already died--writer/director James Bridges and Jack Lemmon--but Bridges's partner Jack Larson does an excellent job in filling some of the gaps. A few deleted scenes are shown, ones that at the time Lemmon was especially miffed about being cut. The transfer is spot-on and the upgrade of sound to Dolby 5.1 makes the finale even more frightening. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

The China Syndrome
I grew up with these guys and gals on TV. Thought the seventy's and eighty's and even the ninety's. This movie made me think. This really happened in Russia. I really like the movie, some spots in the movie I had a ruff time watching. One for instance was where the plant manager was in the control room holding some of the workers and camera crew kind of hostages, trying to convince the government that the plant was unsafe. The Plant manager finally was shot dead in the end and the plants crew where interviewed on Camera at the end. The plant manager didn't need to be shot to death, they could have taken him to the loony been.

One of the best of the 1970's
Great film of the late 1970;s with a powerful message; Corporations with too much power abuse the rights of others- it holds so much truer today where corporations have made ordinary people into nearly slaves.

Jack Lemmon gives a brilliant multi faceted performance, while Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas give equally excellent performances.

Stephen Bishop's 'Somewhere In Between' opens the film during credits, and sets the film off wonderfully.

The film looks like 1978- the hair, the clothes and the technology are certainly fun to look at- so obviously dated now (I was 27 when the film was released in early 1979- so I remember it all so well. We did dress badly then-

An important film nonetheless, that I enjoy more after every viewing.

Great acting by all the Leads. Especially Jack Lemmon
I'm not going to rehash the storyline. I'll just say that everytime I watch this movie, it astounds me that Jack Lemmon didn't win an Academy Award for his part in this movie, as a diligent employee after an "accident" at the nuclear power plant in which he works. Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas also give admirable performances. Wilford Brimley is just as serious, intense and convincing in his portrayal as one of Lemmon's co-workers.

The idea of only having a lead-in music theme (by Stephen Bishop-Somewhere In Between) and then leaving the rest of the movie devoid of additional music was absolute genuis. As the viewer is then given ample space for maximum concentration on the subject matter. I'm a movie-goer who loves music that heightens the drama and stirs the emotions, but this movie worked perfectly fine without it. And the emotional ending proved that music wasn't required (even with the ending credits scrolling).

Sure, some parts of the story may have seemed far fetched; such as the hired thugs who go after anyone trying to expose the truth about the possible "China Syndrome" incident. But the usual cover-up from the higher-ups that we usually expect (or suspect) doesn't disappoint.

Moral lesson(s), personal integrity, subterfuge, a [little] lesson in the operation of a nuclear power plant, differing viewpoints on the issue of nuclear power (whether staged or real) and an emotionally shocking ending are what this film is about. A great disaster movie for a disaster that didn't happen.