Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have for a long time been a fan of apocalyptic, WW3-type thrillers, and this HBO Original tops my list as one of the best ever! Based on the novel Trinity's Child by William Prochnau and starring Powers Boothe and Rebecca DeMornay, By Dawn's Early Light is an excellent cautionary tale of what would happen if a nuclear exchange were started by dissidents in another country's military and how the members of two different governments would work together to stop it. It is also the tale of Captain Moreau (DeMornay) and Cassidy (Boothe), two B-52 pilots assigned to knock out the leadership bunkers of the Russian military, and their struggle to do what they believe is the right thing. At first they feel themselves bound by duty to their country, but as they begin to grasp the full scope of just what it is they're doing, each of them must struggle with their own doubts and fears about what would happen if the conflict they're involved in were to escalate into an all-out war. Boothe and DeMornay are just two of a very great cast in this film. Martin Landau turned in a bravura performance as the President of the United States, who is disabled in the aftermath of a nuclear strike on Washington and who alone holds the key to stopping the conflict. I loved Darren McGavin's trigger-happy Secretary of the Interior who, thinking the President is dead, issues orders that could lead to the destruction of his country. James Earl Jones was great as "Alice", commander of Strategic Air Command's "Looking Glass" plane and a man with moral and ethical doubts of his own about this conflict, and Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol as Sedgwick, the young Emergency War Orders officer who is with the President when he is injured, was just terrific. I also want to give a nod to Daniel Benzali as Bascombe, director of the FEMA bunker at Olney. Although his was a minor role, he made the most of it. As stated before, this is a superb film, but it's definitely not for the faint-hearted. It probes deeply into the American psyche and forces us all to think of just what we would do in a situation such as the one presented. Overall, though, it is an excellent film.