At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, maybe women directors do bring more more heart and soul to movies than men.
"The Peacemaker," helmed by Mimi Leder, is unquestionably the most heartfelt action picture of the year . . . admittedly not an arena with a lot of competition.
After such summertime laugh-at-death thrillers as "Con Air," "Face/Off" and "Air Force One," "The Peacemaker" manages to come up with a novel idea — the hero and heroine actually weep for the deaths of innocent victims.
That's right, after a summer of movies that have encouraged audiences to cheer the violence as bad guys are killed one-by-one, or, when innocent victims die, to quickly forget about them as the film callously flits off to the next high-tech, blow-'em-up moment, along comes a movie that not only portrays the pain of death but shows us the grief that follows.
Plotwise, "The Peacemaker" offers little more than any most save-the-world-from-terrorists yarns — but at least it has some heart. And from this chair, that would appear to come from Leder. (This is the first big-screen feature for the Emmy-winning director/producer of TV's "ER.")
The story has to do with nuclear bombs being stolen from the Russians and smuggled into Bosnia for use by terrorists. Nuclear scientist Nicole Kidman and maverick intelligence officer George Clooney team up to stop the bad guys, and Leder keeps the film moving at a breathless pace.
The script, by Michael Schiffer ("Crimson Tide," "Colors"), does have some wit, and certainly the dialogue exchanges between intellectual Kidman and macho Clooney manage to avoid the usual cliches. (Anyone remember Demi Moore demonstrating that her character is as tough as a man in "G.I. Jane" by virtue of her foul-language vocabulary?)
It's also nice to see Kidman's character carefully adjusting to her new decision-making role and feeling a bit overwhelmed when one of those decisions is responsible for the loss of human life. And it's refreshing to see Clooney's gung-ho, combat-experienced military chief question her on a point but then respectfully follow her orders. Both characters seem more like real people than most movie stereotypes, men and women with different personalities thrown together in a work situation who don't need to feel the need to challenge each other on every point or hop into bed together.
Kidman is terrific in a role quite different from what she's done before, and Clooney validates his fans' faith in his abilities as an "ironic hero," after stumbling with "Batman & Robin."
Of course, "The Peacemaker's" real selling point is action, and Leder proves herself a crackerjack action director, with some seriously intense set-pieces — a train wreck that opens the film, a horrifying nuclear blast, a car chase in a crowded plaza, a foot chase through the streets of New York and, best of all, a nail-biting standoff on a bridge between a truck armed with nuclear weapons and military helicopters.
This, by the way, is the first film from the new DreamWorks studio, which was built by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. And it should provide them with a solid box-office winner as the studio's kickoff effort.
"The Peacemaker" is rated R for violence and profanity, though it could have easily earned a PG-13 by toning it down a notch with just a small bit of editing.