by Anonymous Logician, Copyright June 30, 2006, all rights reserved. 724 views
A decent movie from back in the nineties with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Denzel is a young XO on a nuclear sub that's just received orders to launch its payload. When a second message is cut off mid-sentence, Denzel's character refuses to concur with Hackman's decision to proceed.
Washington insists that their duty is to retrieve the last radio transmission in case it cancelled the launch order. To Hackman, the sub's captain, their duty is to follow the first order, and a struggle for control of the vessel breaks out. The movie does a good job of raising questions of ethics and duty, while admitting that sometimes these answers come hard. I especially liked the ethical dilemma that raged inside the ship's weapons officer, played very well by Viggo Mortenson.
There's also a great line from Denzel to the effect of, "In the nuclear world, the real enemy is war itself."
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