OUTBREAK (1995)

After directing classic war film Das Boot (1981), filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen’s filmography can be seen as an admirable yet futile effort to recapture the glory of that tension-filled submarine thriller. A little over a decade since that film, Petersen must surely have been a prime candidate to direct Outbreak, a medical disaster film that imagines the effects of a deadly virus sweeping across a small town in the United States. Motaba, the fictional virus in question, is already posited as a grave danger from the movie’s opening scene. In 1967, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) is wracked not just by war, but by this deadly new virus, whose patients are bloodied and emaciated within hours of contracting it. An impressive sense of scale brings us right into the action, wasting no time for audiences to catch their breaths between the mounds of dirt and human bodies exploding in mid-air, or the rapid gunfire screaming across the sky.

Only some odd editing choices, which cut to establish a new set in this extended outdoor location, disrupt the organically chaotic affair, transporting us to a new section of this scene’s rapidly unfolding developments about five seconds too early. One starts to expect characters’ dialogue to be cut off mid-sentence, with the fact that this film had four editors (William Hoy, Lynzee Klingman, Stephen E. Rivkin, Neil Travis) making these creative choices both confounding and understandable. This editing-by-committee style, though it may have its downsides, thankfully waits at least a millisecond here before cutting to a new shot (though not much longer than that). It works wonders in interactions comprised of fighting, and not at all when medical workers and virus-stricken patients discuss these harrowing conditions; luckily, in scenes like this it is combat and its fatal dance that comprises the bulk of the momentum. A brief lull in the madness of war occurs as wounded soldiers and aid workers cry out with jubilance at a swiftly approaching helicopter, only to realise that it’s deploying a bomb, which they silently observe as it slowly descends towards them, wiping out any signs of life.

Well, sort of. An almost perfect mission in eradicating the virus (sans any semblance of morality) is hindered by two survivors: a shaman and a young boy. Almost 30 years since this incident, they’re the focus of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) virologist Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman), who’s off on an important work trip to Zaire. He’s accompanied by colleague Lieutenant Colonel Casey Schuler (Kevin Spacey) and new recruit Major Salt (Cuba Gooding Jr.). The latter is a nerdy know-it-all (remarkably, without the arrogance that this descriptor implies) who must face a cold, harsh reality after much time spent studying the effects of these deadly viruses from the aloof, theoretical distance of manuals and reports. Unsurprisingly, he buckles under the pressure, almost killing himself when he rips off his hazmat suit mask in a fit of panic after observing the dying patients.

Salt’s gradual ascension to a heroic badass, along with Schuler’s snappy one-liners, are just two of the indications that Outbreak works far better as a cheesy action film than one which cares about these characters or what they have to say. Only Daniels is this story’s emotional focus. Just over 15 years since one of his defining roles as a divorcee in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Hoffman is now undergoing a much more amicable split. Is it a knowing, tongue-in-cheek joke that Daniels’ divorce involves him and ex-wife Roberta Keough (Rene Russo) attempting to figure out how to divide their time between looking after their two dogs? Almost certainly. It’s an enjoyable little twist on a film that sticks out in this iconic actor’s career, even if the romance between Daniels and Keough never holds much weight.

The pair’s marriage has already dissolved by the time they meet, while their gradual recognition of how important they still are to one another is too small a part of this film to have much impact. Even still, one can almost glimpse the puppet master strings holding these characters upright from screenwriters Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool, urging us—and them—to reconsider viewing this relationship as being beyond repair. By making Keough a CDC scientist, ample excuses are formed to throw these former lovers into the same room together, but no sparks begin to fly.

This won’t prove too much of a surprise for anyone who’s watched Outbreak, which places more importance on its action-packed sequences than rekindling this relationship. To its credit, this movie knows exactly what kind of entertainment value to extract from these scenes, with an impressive sense of scale underpinning the action. It’s also undeniably interesting—if not fascinating in this particular case—to watch a movie about a rapidly spreading virus in the post-COVID era. This is surely the main appeal of a film like Outbreak in the 2020s, given that the movie’s lacklustre critical reception and middling user ratings online haven’t provided it much of a legacy. Having actors like Hoffman, Spacey, and Gooding Jr. portray three colleagues attempting to take on a fast-developing pandemic sounds like a clear recipe for success, but no one in this incredibly talented trio is given the storytelling tools to create movie magic here.

Instead, it’s the virus itself that has aided this film’s legacy, with Outbreak resurging in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it became the fourth-most-streamed movie on Netflix in March 2020. But even then, its uncomfortably relevant plot was outshone by Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), a medical disaster thriller whose multi-story plotline is tense and thrilling, all while making excellent use of a truly stellar cast. This who’s who of some of the finest actors of the 21st century—and the 1990s in Fishburne’s case—are all essential in an anxiety-inducing thriller that flits between time zones and locations with such ease that its scale feels bottomless. Almost every aspect related to a global contagion is explored, where different social strata and perspectives on this emerging pandemic are seamlessly integrated throughout Scott Z. Burns’ superbly economical script. How exactly it manages to condense such an epic story into a runtime that, at 106 minutes, is over 20 minutes shorter than Outbreak, is nothing shy of a miracle.

If there is one criticism plaguing Contagion, it’s that it fails to capture the tragic loss of ordinary lives, since it’s so wrapped up in the global scale of its story that it doesn’t leave much room for the human factor. It’s interesting to watch Damon’s everyman character attempt to cope with the death of his wife due to this fictional disease, as well as reckon with a pandemic that forces him to hunker down in his home for an extended period of time, but it still feels like the emotional impact of this pandemic is missing a note or two. What it does capture brilliantly is the horror of this catastrophe, the ways it’s dismissed as a banal non-event, vaccine scepticism, the sickening death toll, and the skin-crawling sensation that the disease, in this world of muted colours and uncomfortably realistic plotting, is slowly creeping up on each of these characters.

Whereas Soderbegh’s film is never overbearing in the slightest, Outbreak is like a freight train barrelling through whatever notes of subtlety or emotional resonance could have been wrangled out of its core concept. That’s not an inherently bad thing—Petersen has enough of a grasp on how to deliver action to ensure that there are some fun moments here—but it makes Contagion’s approach towards the emotional weight of its pandemic seem like a masterstroke. In the case of Outbreak, Daniels and Salt shun government protocol and embark on a desperate, unauthorised mission to ensure that the town of Cedar Creek, where many citizens have become infected, isn’t wiped out by an approaching bomb. Although it’s vaguely interesting to consider the morality of this protagonist’s superiors and their attempts to kill innocent people to stop the spread of this virus, there’s a surprising lack of tension or bite in this cheesy Hollywood flick. Surprisingly, its strongest moment is the outburst of emotion from the unnamed White House Chief of Staff (J.T Walsh), who makes an impassioned plea for the US government not to kill over 2,000 innocent lives. In the briefest of roles, Walsh turns in a commanding performance that outshines every other big-name actor here, with his monologue proving to be this screenplay’s crowning achievement.

The sign of a great film is not necessarily inventiveness; we don’t have to rationally deduce that the town of Cedar Creek is in genuine peril. What is essential, though, is for us to be so invested in this story that we aren’t even thinking about the logic behind a mainstream film like this, which would never be ballsy enough to allow Cedar Creek to be detonated. This, crucially, is where Outbreak fails, never managing to elicit much tension or thrills in spite of its action set pieces. Getting to see this disease spread, whether through a hospital or cinema, creates some intrigue, especially as the first few civilians infected by the disease can only helplessly watch on as their health experiences a rapid decline. But this gradually dissipates into an underwhelming action flick and lacklustre romance tale. Though not bereft of merit, this medical disaster film is outshone in every facet by Soderbergh and Burns’ top-notch outing within this genre.

USA | 1995 | 128 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • KOREAN • FRENCH

Cast & Crew

director: Wolfgang Petersen.
writers: Laurence Dworet & Robert Roy Pool.
starring: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Patrick Dempsey, J.T Walsh & Zakes Mokae.