Fat Man and Little Boy

The title of this ponderous detailing of the creation of the atomic bomb refers to the two nuclear "devices" which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is not their story, and viewers will likely wonder who's story this is. Ostensibly, it's about the relationship between General Leslie Groves (a one-note performance by Paul Newman) and his main genius Robert J. Oppenheimer (a quarter-note performance by TV's Dwight Schultz). We follow their story between 1942 and 1945, when the bomb is tested at the Trinity site in New Mexico. Filmmaker Roland Joffe has spared no effort to get across his message that nuclear weapons are bad--the characters all mouth prescient anti-nuclear sentiments and doodley squat about what makes them tick. To get the viewers involved, Joffe and crew have concocted a shamelessly manipulative subplot in which a young physicist (John Cusack) has a brief desert romance before dying from a uranium accident. Although the film has "epic" written all over it, from Ennio Morricone's misjudged military march soundtrack to Vilmos Zsigmond sweeping panoramic shots of the Los Alamos community, a potentially great character story (about Groves and Oppenheimer) gets lost in the beat by boring beat ticking off of the events which led the world irrevocably into the modern age. A whopping effort of talent and money have gone into this misfire which has been better done for TV (Day One). Not recommended. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review--May 18, 2004--Paramount, 94 min., R, $19.95--Making its debut on DVD, Roland Joffe's 1989 Fat Man and Little Boy bows on DVD on an extra-less disc that sports a solid transfer and both Dolby surround and 5.1 audio tracks (adding oomph to Ennio Morricone's characteristically powerful musical score). Bottom line: despite the star presence of Paul Newman, John Cusack, and Laura Dern, this remains a plodding, rather dull version of the Manhattan Project story, and is not a necessary purchase.]