'Sum of All Fears' tests our post-9/11 threshold for plots

Based on a best-selling novel, the film depicts terrorists setting off a nuclear bomb in Baltimore.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 1, 2002

Nearly nine months after Sept. 11, are we ready to find terrorism entertaining again?

That's the provocative question raised by The Sum of All Fears, a potential blockbuster of a movie that opened Friday.

The movie, based on a best-selling Tom Clancy novel, shows terrorists setting off a nuclear bomb and devastating a major American city. It's the first film released since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to deal so vividly with this kind of subject matter.

Are we ready for this?

"It's just a movie. It's true that some of the scenes were maybe a little jarring, especially the nuclear bomb and all the windows in the buildings exploding," said Carl Peyton, 31, who saw the film Friday at BayWalk in downtown St. Petersburg. "I did think of 9/11. But really, it's just a movie."

Peyton's comments were echoed by many moviegoers who saw the film at BayWalk, where it was playing on three screens.

Some were unnerved by the movie's plot at a time when the U.S. government regularly warns of possible new terrorist attacks. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently said terrorists "inevitably will get their hands on" nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

"It's so disturbing to think how easily that could happen," said Patty Knapp, a 36-year-old St. Petersburg nursing assistant. "They would do it, too. If Osama bin Laden had a nuke, you know he'd use it."

In the movie, European neo-Nazis try to start a nuclear war between the United States and Russia by setting off an atomic bomb in Baltimore.

Some local Clancy fans noticed a few key differences between the film and the novel on which it is based.

"In the book, they were Arab terrorists," said Rick Stocker, 41, of Pinellas Park. "I can understand why the movie producers didn't go that way."

Actually, The Sum of All Fears was filmed before Sept. 11.

After Sept. 11, the film's release was delayed, as were a couple of other movies featuring terrorists or bombs: the Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick Collateral Damage and the comedy Big Trouble.

In recent years, Hollywood has made several thrillers about terrorists armed with nuclear or biological weapons: True Lies, Executive Decision, The Peacemaker.

Some local moviegoers said they thought about Sept. 11 as they debated whether to see The Sum of All Fears. Others scoffed at the idea that Sept. 11 was even an issue.

"It's a movie," said Chas Erdman, 27. "Look at what we watch for entertainment -- Titanic, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor. It's all death and destruction."

Coming next weekend: Bad Company, a film featuring Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins fighting terrorists who are planting a nuclear bomb in New York.

It's a Disney movie.

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