“Fat Man and Little Boy” is an epic war film about the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied effort to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Director Roland Jaffe (“The Killing Fields” 1984), who co-wrote the screenplay with Bruce Robinson, failed to make a top-rate “epic” movie due to a mediocre script and lackluster direction. The film seemed to slip into a melodramatic rut rather than reach high historical drama.
The performances were at least acceptable. Veteran movie star Paul Newman is believable as Gen. Leslie Groves, as well as the younger Dwight Schultz as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The supporting cast includes Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack, Laura Dern, Fred Thompson, Natasha Richardson, John C. McGinley, Ron Frazier, Clark Gregg, Mary Pat Gleason, Robert Peter Gale, Ron Vawter, Del Close, John Considine, Gerald Hiken, Todd Field, and Ed Lauter.
“Fat Man and Little Boy,” named after the two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, was a huge bomb at the box office for Lightmotive and Paramount Pictures.
Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)
cinema
My Review
“Fat Man and Little Boy” is an epic war film about the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied effort to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Director Roland Jaffe (“The Killing Fields” 1984), who co-wrote the screenplay with Bruce Robinson, failed to make a top-rate “epic” movie due to a mediocre script and lackluster direction. The film seemed to slip into a melodramatic rut rather than reach high historical drama.
The performances were at least acceptable. Veteran movie star Paul Newman is believable as Gen. Leslie Groves, as well as the younger Dwight Schultz as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The supporting cast includes Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack, Laura Dern, Fred Thompson, Natasha Richardson, John C. McGinley, Ron Frazier, Clark Gregg, Mary Pat Gleason, Robert Peter Gale, Ron Vawter, Del Close, John Considine, Gerald Hiken, Todd Field, and Ed Lauter.
“Fat Man and Little Boy,” named after the two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, was a huge bomb at the box office for Lightmotive and Paramount Pictures.