The Metropolis was a movie that was seemingly way ahead of its time. It’s a movie about the conflict between the rulers (the technologically advanced class) and the the workers who toiled to provide for it all (and who were seen as the subjugated sections of the population). Metropolis depicted this scenario, set in the year 2026, with hugely futuristic settings. The movie was not something that is easily viewable in its original creation - it was deemed too long (at 210 minutes), ruthlessly chopped and modified for multiple reasons (whether to it into the 90 minutes allowed by theatre owners, or because parts of the subject were deemed too controversial in the United States, or because the sound era started soon after and the movie was adjusted in terms of frames per second to fit into the sound compatible format). In addition, parts of the original movie were found in Argentina, and parts of the original movie were never recovered.

The movie was made in Germany, as probably one of the earliest great science fiction movies, made by Austrian-German director Fritz Lang and one of the most expensive movies of that era, costing around 7 million Reichsmarks at that time (approx $200 million as of now). The movie was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou (in a twist, the movie was praised by the Nazis, and Thea soon became an ardent Nazis; she and Lang finally divorced in 1934).
The society of 2026 was divided into 2 rigid groups with the planners living in luxury, and the workers toiling underground in pretty bad conditions. The skyline has plenty of Gothic style skyscrapers (probably inspiring the Tyrell towers in the classy Bladerunner made much later). The city is run by Johann ‘Joh’ Fredersen (Alfred Abel), who looks for ways to ensure that the workers remain in their conditions. However, there is a charismatic and beautiful lady, Maria (Brigitte Helm), who advises the workers against trying for a revolt, and instead wait for the arrival of a figure known as the ‘Mediator’. It is the Mediator who will bring together these 2 separate sections of society and improve the conditions of the workers. She has an admirer, Frederson’s own son, Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), who is disgusted at the conditions in which the workers toil and live, and joins Maria’s cause.
And then starts the true future. The scientist and old rival of Fredersen, Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), builds a robot in the shape of Maria. He uses this robot to first preach discord in the young rich men of Metropolis and then descends to the underground sections where the robot inspires rebellion in the workers. In this rebellion, they destroy the important ‘Heart Machine’ and then realize that the destruction in turn causes the flooding of their own quarters. They chase Maria, and burn her, and then realize that she is a robot. The real Maria is chased by Rotwang, and followed by Freder, and in the climatic end, Rotwang falls to his death; and Freder carries out his destiny of being the Mediator by uniting Frederson with the workers.

Frank Capra directed a number of movies, and one of his movies that has been marked as a great movie, one that has been remembered for quite some time is ‘Meet John Doe’, released in 1941. Frank Capra had a certain style to his movies, and a lot of his movies showcased qualities such as the basic element of human goodness, hard work and being good to others (also translated as being unselfish); such a concept is very rarely seen in modern age movies that tend to show a large portion of life as having all human emotions including the negative ones, and fewer roles tend to be fully white, more like everybody having shades of grey. Some of the other famous movies by Frank Capra include ‘It’s a wonderful life’ (1946), ‘It happened one night’ (1934), and many others. The movie did not do well at the Academy Awards, being nominated for Best Original Story.

This movie is slotted as a comedy, but it actually takes a hard and cynical look at both the newspaper business and at politics. The movie principally stars Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward Arnold. Barbara is a newspaper columnist, Ann Mitchell, who has just been fired, and angry, prints a fake letter from a ‘John Doe’, who claims that he is unemployed and threatens to commit suicide against the various ills of society. This letter catches the emotional thread of many many citizens, and becomes very popular. As a result, Mitchell is forced to continue the tale (in the process having got her job back), and to make sure that the story has some legs to stand on, they hire a vagabond and former baseball player, John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), to tour the country.
This movement becomes popular, drawing in support from all over, and is financially supported by the newspaper’s publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), who recognizes that such a movement could be a potent political weapon and aims to use it for his own fledging political aspirations. John soon discovers that he is being used, but before he can expose this whole scam, he is in turn exposed by Norton who claims that he was unaware of the scam.
Driven by frustration, John plans to commit suicide by jumping off City Hall (as claimed in the original letter); but what happens ? Does he commit out the actual suicide, or do the John Doe clubs manage to get him to back off ?

The American President is a sweet romance story set in the midst of the American Presidency and an impending election. The movie was directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin. The American President (Michael Douglas) has just had some high poll ratings and this gives his team some confidence that they are in a good spot to win re-election. His principal advisor and Chief of Staff (Martin Sheen) and he go back a long way and have an easy comfort. He also does not seem to have any character blemish, being a widower with a young daughter, and no female companions to worry about. The only issue is the contender from the rival party, but they are not really worrying about this.
Things start to change when a new lady Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) comes into town, as one of the main lobbyists for a Green coalition. Her aim is to get a law passed that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions (a target for most environmentalists since that leads to a reduction in fossil fuel consumption and an overall reduction of oil used). She has a pretty good reputation as a lobbyist, being able to get members of Congress to her position. The President also has an objective, to get gun laws modified by a small extent, so that he can claim overall credit for reducing guns in general hands and maybe cause a reduction in violence levels (one of his advisors Michael J Fox wants him to try and do something like that, but the President is unwilling to go beyond a certain point). However, he is not willing to try and stake a lot of political capital in trying to get a comprehensive arms control bill passed.

And then the President meets her in a accidental meeting at the White House, where she is criticizing the President for his administration’s policies in the environmental sphere, not knowing that the President has just walked in. When she finds out, there is a sense of embarrassment, but it passes and he makes a deal with her that if she can get a majority in Congress, the environmental bill will get the support of the administration. The President is taken with her, and invites her to be his date for an official function since he needs a companion; she is a bit taken back, but accepts. The date passes by fine, and she gets closer to the President, but a bit apprehensive since she is after all a political lobbyist and he is the President, imagine the complications. Soon, however, things start to heat up when she spends a night at the White House with the President, and the press corps is outside in the morning to greet her :-). She is the talk of the night shows and the President is slowly becoming the target of the moral groups, and as well the target for his election contender. This heightens when it is discovered that Benning had once taken part in a demonstration in which the American Flag is burnt, and this calls into question the patriotism of the President, and he is severely attacked by his opponent Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss).
Against the advice of his advisors, the President refuses to reply to these attacks, assuming that this will demean his office if he has to respond to such attacks. However, in the end, the President betrays her by trading the votes of some die-hard anti-environmental bill politicians (from Michigan, where Detroit is the center of the car manufacturing corporations and die-hard opponents of the bill). When this happens, and Benning finds out, she is fired from her job since the bill is now dead, and she gives a piece of her mind to the President and walks out. After some introspection, the President finally decides to respond to all the attacks, and gives a rousing press speech where he defends her right as a free American to burn the flag in a demonstration (a freedom enshrined in the bill of rights), commits his administration to fight for the environment and withdraw his arms control bill and float a new one that will actually do something to control arms. This is a rousing speech that convinces her that this is a new President, as well as promise a rousing fight from his side in the election campaign that will take the fight to his opponent.
This is a very liberal movie from a very liberal movie maker, and is worthy of a watch.

Robert Ludlum wrote a lot about conspiracies of power and attempting to take control, a subject that was very popular in the 60’s and 70’s with all the talk of the rise of the arms-industrial complex and associated industries; the good part is that he was able to weave a good storyline that kept a person compelled to read the book. Ludlum’s books had many things in common, they had a fast paced action, they always had many top level people involved, including surprises where some of the people were not expected to be a part of the conspiracy, but they were.
The Materese Circle involves 2 brutal and skilled enemies, Vasili Taleniekov from the Soviet Union, and Brandon Alan Scofield from the US State Dept Consular Relations. These 2 are killers who have killed people loved by either one of them, and hate each other in a visceral way. And they are the 2 main suspects from either side when valuable people on tne US (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Soviet (a very renowned scientist) side are assassinated in a brutal way. Suspicion immediately falls onto the other, and is only neautralized when the leaders of either countries calls the other.

Both of these are killers are now getting slightly old, maybe not of so much use to their country’s intelligence community, but still have the talent. However, little do they know about the way that their life is going to be turned. They are soon going to be getting information about a massive conspiracy, called the Materese Circle, spun by an old Corsican rich man and coming to full active life now. The conspiracy has its own troops, its own assassins and its own leaders, and they will stop at nothing to remove the ones they want to remove from their path. The Materese leaders are the ones who are orchestrating the international terrorism community (one must remember this was before the time of the Al-Qaeda), and is now moving towards getting control of both Moscow and Washington DC, and it is very difficult to stop them.
Taleniekov learns of these facts from an old friend who is dying after a visit from a killer of the Matarese Circle, and finds it hard to believe all this conspiracy, and when told to work with Scofield, refuses; but soon things are moving to get them together. Both these skilled killers are, under instructions from Matarese Men, sentenced to death by their respective Governments, no capture, no interrogation, just execution. Eventually, these 2 old enemies, get together (in an incredible episode of violence where they manage to kill the assassins sent to kill them). They travel to the Island of Corsica to learn more, and learn a fair deal more about the origins of the group called the Matarese. They are pursued relentlessly by the Matarese, who don’t hesitate to kill friends and loved ones of these 2.
At the same time, these 2 are getting closer to the source, and eventually manage to reach their target, and in a final burst of violence, manage to eliminate the Matarese council, even as the Soviet is lost in this final carnage. Read the book for its fast paced flow, for the story that could seem realistic in a different time and that is very gripping.

For those of you who have not read books by Bill Bryson before, be prepared for a blast. These books are non-fiction, but are incredibly funny. There has been many a time when I have had to go back and read a section that I just read since it made me laugh (and I wanted to laugh again). Some of the other great books of Bill Bryson that you should read are a ‘A Lost continent’, ‘A walk in the woods’, ‘A short history of nearly everything’, ‘Down Under’, and so on (you get the picture - I have yet to read a Bill Bryson book that did not appeal).
This book is about the development of English language down the ages, so you will find a lot of detail about how words came to be added to the English used in the United States, such as derived from the American Indians who were living there when the settlers first went in, from various languages (or rather from the immigrants of various countries such Germany, French, Irish, British, and so on,) and from whom many words of the language came to be derived, though many times these were twisted and turned in a way that the original speaker would not have realized.

But is this just a scholarly exposition of the development of the English language used in the United States ? That would be downright boring. To everyone’s relief, such is not the case. The book delves into the history of the United States and presents a great many facts while reliving the story, at the same time, debunking many myths that we have. The book is a great read for anyone who wants to read about the history of the United states through its culture, not through politics or war. From the starting, the book is a wonder of facts and learning:
- Giving a lot more detail about the original settlers and whether there were people before them
- About the way that the original settlers almost got wiped out, but survived due to the help of the native Indians nearby
- About the nature of the apparently frigid puritans and the easy prevalence of sex before marriage as a way to measure compatibility and how many marriage were formalized after a baby had been conceived
- A great many myths around the American revolution including heroic words and actions ascribed to people who apparently did no such thing
- The womanizing nature of Benjamin Franklin
- The great debates and concerns around having the different time zones and even more so, the concept of daylight savings time
- A lot of description of the many inventions and the different nature of the investors (their human traits as compared to the noble myths around them)
and so on
Too many to tell, it is better read from the book which is a very enthralling reading.

In this time and age, the events described in this thriller by Frederick Forsyth seem as from another age. And in fact, that was another age. In 1979, when this novel was published, the Soviet Union was the worldwide great power representing communism, with the Eastern half of Europe in its clutches. In addition to the client states such as East Germany, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc that were also communists, and some of whom had seen the might of the Soviet army when they had tried to move towards democracy, there were the states that were part of the Soviet Union besides Russia. In all, there were 15 former states that made up the Soviet Union, and it would only have been a visionary / fool who would have dared to claim that these countries will be separate countries within 12 years.
And this is one of the main stories of this thriller. The second largest constituent state of the Soviet Union was the Ukraine, and since it was the second largest, and had known independence before, it was ruthlessly sought to be made like Russia, and any elements of Ukrainian culture stubbed out; after all, if the people are as Russian as the Russians, then where will there be a need to start a separatist front. The Russians (the largest majority of the Soviet Union) used a combination of the Red Army and the feared KGB (formerly the NKVD) to sniff out and break any level of Ukrainian separatism, such that it never reached any dangerous point.

Frederich Forsyth also takes the opportunity to explain several aspects that form the basis of the thriller, namely:
1. The workings of the Soviet Politburo and the politics between the different members, especially about how the various members come to reach the peak of political life in the Soviet Union (politburo)
2. Some details about the concept of a super-tanker and the colossal damage that a super-tanker can do
3. The use of spies and their information in deciding what Governments that are in conflict with each other do, and how policies are made based on this information
4. And a very advanced topic for that age, involving the use of spy satellites to gather information about what is happening in the territory of another country
5. A lot of details about the spy-craft, about how to spy and control agents in hostile territory
6. And for me, something that was very interesting for me, namely details about what the SR-71 (the Blackbird) can do

The novel starts with the escape of a Ukrainian separatist (under attack from the KGB) from the Soviet Union. He meets a Ukrainian sympathizer who is fanatically in favor of Ukrainian independence and against the Soviet Union and the KGB. He takes this opportunity to go to the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the US and British discover that vast tracts of the Russian grain harvest is spoiled, and then you go to the Russian side and discover that a series of freak incidents cause the spoilage of vast chunks of the Soviet wheat harvest, causing a famine of immense proportions. And once the Americans and Western powers get to know about this, they would demand concessions on a large scale before providing the grain. The Soviet Union cannot afford to undergo a famine of this level since that may cause the one thing that any Soviet politburo dreads, the rise of the long suffering population at a level that the use of force cannot control. One option is to use the vast Red Army to attack Western Europe to get over this scarcity, and this becomes a issue about control of the Politburo.
At such a time, the new British SIS (MI6) head in Moscow meets and old flame; she is also in a position to be able to supply information about the workings of the Politburo, something that the Americans and British find very valuable. As things escalate, this information is of vital information in helping fine-tune the policies of the West.
As things move ahead, things threaten to spiral out of control. If the politburo source is used too much, she could get exposed; if it gets out that Ukrainian separatists have assassinated the head of the KGB, things could spiral out of control and risk giving the faction in the politburo the majority to go to war; and if the Ukrainian separatists use the vast super-tanker Freya that they now control and let the oil go into the ocean, it would be an environmental tragedy of the highest order.
At such times, what can happen. And this is the Devil’s alternative, anything you do has a consequence, and will lead to a loss of life. And for politicians and leaders, taking the easiest path is the way to go. Coldness is an essential attribute of state-craft.
The concluding lines of the book are what would shake you when you read them - ‘Ukraine will be free again’; and this is precisely what happened in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin took Russia away from the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union vanished into history.

Roman Holiday was a movie that brought a major star to American attention. Audrey Hepburn was an almost unknown to the American public at that time; she had appeared on American television in 1952 - a CBS Television Workshop production of Rainy Day in Paradise Junction. However, she was still an unknown, and then here comes this Oscar winning role introducing this great beauty in a role that gave her plenty of screen time. To a large extent, the role is written to allow an actress plenty of freedom, and Audrey Hepburn utilized this role to the maximum possible.
A lot of people know the concept of Cinderella, where a commoner can become like royalty for the night, but then has to get back to being a commoner after a few hours. There is also the reverse story, where royalty wants to get away from it all, and be able to enjoy life like a commoner. Popular imagination has it that being a royal means a life away from stress, but this movie presents a very rigid and structured life as royalty, enough to get people to revolt against this stiff life and want to break free.

The movie was produced and directed by a famous director, William Wyler. Wyler is known for directing a number of movies such as Dodsworth (1936), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Heiress (1949), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Ben-Hur (1959) and Funny Girl (1968). Seeing this list, you can get an idea of the variety of movies directed by Wyler.
The combination of royalty, and a light-hearted romance that does not end in the usual marriage, but results in a bond that is not destined to progress beyond each other’s heart managed to get a total of 10 Academy Award nominations, out of which it won 3 of these awards.
Won:
1. Best Actress Oscar (Audrey Hepburn)
2. Best Original Story (Ian McLellan Hunter, later in 1982 given to the earlier black-listed Dalton Trumbo)
3. Best B/W Costume Design (Edith Head)
Nominated but did not win:
4. Best Picture
5. Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Albert)
6. Best Director
7. Best Screenplay (Ian McClellan Hunter and John Dighton)
8. Best B/W Cinematography
9. Best B/W Art Direction/Set Decoration
10. Best Film Editing

The movie is essentially about 2 characters, with Audrey Hepburn playing the royal princess of an European country, and Gregory Peck plays a reporter out for a good story, and willing to do what it takes to get the story of the real person behind the process. They meet coincidentally, and slowly fall for each other.
Princess Ann is on a European tour, generating goodwill for her country, meeting people of different countries in Europe, attending different functions, and overall getting very bored with all this. She is hemmed in by officials and her chaperone, not able to do what she wants, being guided on the right things to do. She is chafing at these restrictions, and wants to escape to see what things are really like outside the life that she is forced to live.
She manages to escape her embassy in Rome, and sets out to see the city. However, since she seemed hysterical in the embassy, she is getting drowsy and soon goes off to sleep on a park bench. She is found by reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who like most reporters will do anything for a story. When he sees a girl sleeping on a bench, he takes her to this apartment, where she promptly sleeps on his bed, leaving him the couch. The next day he discovers from his office that he she is a princess who he was supposed to be covering, and he can visualize a great story where the real interests and feelings of a princess can be uncovered. Towards that end, he arranges to have a cameraman follow them discreetly.
He takes her for a trip around Rome, in a way that she would never have seen. She gets a different haircut, see the fountain, drive on a Vespa and have a lot of fun, including some serious discussions on life. They slowly start falling for each other, even though he still has a cameraman recording her movements. After they are tracked by the agents of her Government and manage to escape, she realizes that her time on the loose is up and she will have to back to her responsibilities.
Joe, his love overcoming his inclination to get the story, resists his editors commands to make a story, and the next day, in her press conference, presents her all the photos on the sly. And then she leaves his life forever, leaving him to wonder at what could have been, but would never happen.

Thrillers make even more riveting reading when they are based on historical happenings. This novel is based on a combination of 2 important events. Charles De Gaulle was probably the most important leader of France in the past century, seen as the helsman who would make France strong. On the other story, the Algerian question was an important one. Algeria wanted freedom from France, with an insurgency happening in Algeria, and an important section of the French wanting to stamp out this insurgency and ensure that Algeria remains with the French. And then De Gaulle shocked the nation by announcing that Algeria would get independence. Such a news was so shocking for the right-wing hardliners that an organization called the OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète or Secret Armed Organization) attempted to assassinate De Gaulle in order to stop the granting of independence to Algeria.
The novel takes as the starting point, an actual attempt on De Gaulle’s life, spear-headed by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry on the 22nd of August, 1962 in a suburb of Paris called Petit-Clamart. The attempt failed, even though a massive number of bullets were fired. The novel starts from this point, and moves onto the realm of fiction, with the OAS hiring a skilled assassin who comes close to actually shooting De Gaulle, thwarted only by a extremely skilled police detective who is chasing him.

The interesting part is, all of this would have been in secret, so if any such attempt had actually been carried out, it would probably have remained in top secret. The French would have refused to make information public about an attempt that almost succeeded, it would have also made the target seem attainable. The novel, when it came out in 1971, was widely praised for its detail, for the level of research that seems to have been carried out, and is still known as a great piece of fiction.
It is also somewhat infamous, since some of the more infamous people have been seemingly inspired by it. For example,
* A copy of the Hebrew translation of The Day of the Jackal was found in possession of Yigal Amir, the extreme-right militant who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995.
* Real-life terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was nicknamed “Carlos the Jackal” by the press in reference to the novel, which was found in what was assumed to be his bag (but wasn’t). Nevertheless, the nickname stuck.
* Recent assassin Vladimir Arutinian, who attempted to kill US President George W. Bush during his 2005 visit to the country of Georgia, was an obsessive reader of the novel and kept an annotated version of it during his planning for the assassination.
Day of the Jackal is a fast paced thriller, taut, keeps one wanting to continue reading. You also get a great insight of how such a police chase works, where the police has to find such a plot, and then to identify the person who is the plot ring-leader, all in time so as to prevent the plot from getting executed.
The novel is about the hunt for such an assassin, a skilled person who was capable of shooting his target when the target was traveling at high speed, through a very small window of opportunity. The assassin meets with the ring-leaders in Vienna, and then starts his planning, including manufacturing his multiple identities and disguises. French intelligence soon become aware of this plan, and Inspector Claude Lebel is assigned the task of defeating the Jackal. And Lebel starts his effort, calling in his old boys network, and getting a lot of help from the British; enough to close in on the Jackal, but he evades capture as he keeps on getting inside information.
And then the police realize an important event is coming up: Liberation Day, on the 25th of August, commemorating the liberation of Paris in World War II. This is not something that De Gaulle will avoid, and makes an ideal hunting spot for the Jackal. The Jackal manages to avoid the dragnet, using first a woman, and then another man for help, killing them as he leaves them. In a remarkable disguise as a war veteran, the Jackal manages to get past the police barricades and into position where he can put General De Gaulle in his cross-hairs. Lebel is following close behind, but not close enough to prevent the Jackal from taking a shot. What saves De Gaulle is the French custom of kissing both cheeks, and the time gives enough time to Lebel to arrive at the scene. The Jackal kills the policeman along with Lebel, but in the short time-off between Lebel and the Jackal where they recognize each other, Lebel manages to kill the Jackal using a machine-pistol; the only thing that the public know is that a vehicle back-fired producing the noise similar to the machine gun.
However, in the end, there is an element of surprise. The British gentleman who was suspected of being the Jackal, Charles Calthrop, re-appears after a fishing trip, so no one really knows who the Jackal was. And so it ends, with a lonely funeral for the Jackal, attended only by Lebel. A great novel by Frederick Forsyth.

Watching this movie in a hall is an incredible pleasure. With some great air action and excellent effects (audio and visual), you get an incredible feeling. In addition, I am somewhat of a Tom Clancy fan, and even this movie is not based on anything that Tom Clancy has written, it feels very similar to something that Clancy would have written. And Harrison Ford suited the character to a large degree. Movie was released in 1997, and also had some good parts by Gary Oldman and Glenn Close.
Movie is very simple, although the plot is a bit long, with individual parts being excellently depicted. It starts with a joint operation by US and Russian special operations troops to capture the dictator leader of Kazakhstan, General Ivan Radek. 3 weeks later, while visiting Russia, the President gives a resounding speech proclaiming that the US will pursue terrorists wherever they be. His own advisors were somewhat apprehensive about this speech.
In a plan, terrorists trying to free Radek kill some Russian journalists and take their place in the President’s plane, Air Force One (hence the title of the movie). (Note: It would not be so easy for people to enter the President’s plane). Once on board, they get weapons meant for the secret service and use these to take over the plane in a short gun-battle.
Their main objective is to get the President, but they see him escaping in his special pod. However, he has not escaped, but like the former soldier and Presidential Medal of Honour winner that he is, he has elected to stay on board. There is a thrilling episode when the pilots attempt to land at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but the terrorists manage to get into the cockpit and take off again.
In the meantime, the terrorists are threatening the hostages on the plane, and have already started executing them one by one. In this duration, the President fights a battle inside the plane, manages to get most of the people off the plane, but is then caught. When faced with the execution of his family, he asks the Russian president to release Radek. There is a nice sequence when Radek is being released and the way he is walking out of the prison, and this is being watched by the Russian President for whom this is a disaster.
In a fight-back, Ford manages to over-power the terrorists, and in the nick of time convey this to the Russian President. Radek is killed at the gate of the prison, and this would seem like a happy ending. However, they are very close to an air base where the commander of the base is Radek’s man, and he sends his Mig’s to get Air Force One. American fighters are mobilised from a Turkish airbase, and arrive just in the nick of time, not enough to prevent some damage to Air Force One, but enough to drive away these rebels (with one American plane sacrificing himself in front of a missile).
The last episode of the movie now happens. There is a C-130 Hercules nearby and that is sent to get the people abroad Air Force One through a mid-air transfer. Air Force One is losing height and speed and time is of the essence. After a final fight with the Secret Service traitor, Ford just manages to make it in the nick of time.
Overall, this was a nice movie. Nice effects, not very complicated story line, enough to make admirers of action movies feel nice.

Crimson Tide is a gripping tale of conflict between the commander and executive officer on board an Ohio-class missile submarine of the US Navy, USS Alabama. Acting by Gene Hackman as the captain and by Denzel Washington as the executive officer was intense, and I do like this movie tremendously. The movie was released in 1995, and because the subject of the movie was controversial (a mutiny on board a submarine), the US navy refused to cooperate; and all filming had to be done in special sets.
So what is an Ohio class missile boat (submarine) ? It is the quietest boat that the US navy has, very very difficult to detect once it is in the water. It runs on energy from a nuclear reaction and hence does not have the problem of diesel boats that it has to come up for air. It is also a critical part of the US plan for retaliation (second-strike) in a nuclear scenario. A Ohio class submarine has 24 ballistic submarines, each with 8 warheads. The firepower that can be thrown up by an Ohio class submarine can decimate an entire nation.
There are many technical issues in the movie, most of them listed here. The chief one being whether the captain of a nuclear submarine has the ability to fire the missiles without receiving a direct approval from the commander-in-chief (the President). Having said that, it is a very entertaining movie.
The movie deals at a time of tension with Russia. A Russian renegade has taken control of a Russian missile base and has threatened both Russia and the US from taking any action. The USS Alabama is ordered to be on patrol, with the aim of being able to fire on the Russian base if there are any hostile actions taken by the Russian. Gene Hackman is the captain (Captain Frank Ramsey) and his executive officer is Denzel Washington (Lt Commander Ron Hunter). The boat does receive an order to fire on the Russian base, but then a second order starts to come through, is aborted however when the Alabama is attacked by a Russian Akula hunter submarine. The captain believes that he has a valid order, but Washington refuses to concur, wanting to review the second aborted order.
This sets off a confrontation. The XO (executive officer) orders the arrest of the captain (who is normally god of the submarine) for over-reaching his authority, and in a sudden fight with the Akula, suffers further damage while destroying the Russian sub. The damage is severe, with communications knocked out, people having dies, and water having flooded part of the sub. The captain’s loyal officers get him releases, and he then orders the arrest of the XO and his loyal officers.
Ramsey is determined to launch the missiles, and is only prevented by the weapons officer who has been convinced by the XO to delay this operation. In this stand-off, they determine to wait for the second communication, and communications finally get restored. The second order was a reversal of the first order, ordering a cease and desist. The US navy came this close to launching nuclear missiles on a nuclear-capable nation.
In the post battle review, the admirals are astonished at the level of conflict on board the sub, and the net result is that the captain resigns and the XO takes over. Realistic, maybe not; gripping, sure; and very very interesting. Almost the entire action takes place inside a submarine.