Directed by: Mimi Leder
Starring: George Clooney
Nicole Kidman
Music: Hans Zimmer
Rated: R for profanity and violence
Length: 2 hours
From DreamWorks Pictures

PeaceMaker is no slow boat to China. This zip around the world is a ride on a rocket, with a strong hero and an intelligent heroine. (Remember my criteria for a good movie?) And Leder shows the skill of a director who loves atmosphere right from the beginning. The hijacking of the train seems a tad over the top with the crimson laser sights piercing the passenger car's hull, but it IS effective. No doubt about that!

A head-on train collision is only part of an elaborate plan to hijack nuclear bombs. And at the crux of it all is a Serb, who wants the whole world to suffer because he's suffered.

Julia Kelly, played by Nicole Kidman, (it's amazing what she can do with her clothes on), is a scientist called on to find the bombs after only 2 weeks on the job. She is ably assisted by Colonel Thomas Defoe, (enter George Clooney) who's summoned out of his military trial (called because he pays off Soviet informants with all-terrain vehicles).

A paper trail leads them to Vienna, where the rocket ride takes you on a car chase, thereby showcasing Defoe's talent as a soldier. Satellite surveillance propels them to the Iraq border for a World-War-Three risk to retrieve the 8 bombs left in the truck. And an informant tells them they've got a live one on the loose. So it's off to New York and the U.N. conference scheduled there.

Thanks to some bully writing, intelligence backs these characters, something that we would actually hope for should this scenario make it to the real world. The higher-ups call in the experts and ACTUALLY take their advice. (Nothing ruins a movie faster for me than when, for the sake of conflict, characters don't take the advice of the experts they called in to advise them. Da!)

You'll be glad you stayed till the end as they close in on the perp. The tension and conflict make the sweat beads pop, from the killing of a police officer to a sniper that shouldn't be one because of his lack of conviction. But wait, it gets better. The final scene, where Kidman and Clooney are alone with the bomb just before it goes off, makes you wish they didn't just miss each other in the Batman movies. This scene is a wowser.

So for next POPCORN HOUR , this'll do ya!