Deep Impact

Deep Impact
Robert Duvall
Téa Leoni
Elijah Wood
Morgan Freeman
Vanessa Redgrave
James Cromwell
Maximilian Schell


I remember that after seeing this in theaters back in 1998 I walked out liking it. Today is the first time I’ve watched it since, and while I don’t think it’s the good movie that I remembered it being, I know why I walked out feeling that way. Deep Impact is an odd little movie. It is an end of the world disaster film, but besides a few scenes with some mostly bad special effects, and Elijah Wood trying to hunt down the girl he loves, there’s really no action at all. The scientific explanations for the disaster and attempts at rescue are laughable. The plot itself is simple to the extreme, and not a single character is written with any depth. Indeed, there are so many characters, so many story threads, that the films ends up being little more than a collage of scenes. The weird thing is, it works. Not on any level of greatness. Not as a popcorn movie. Not even as a good movie. But on an emotional level, this film is moving.

Disaster films have always been popular. The idea that something so dangerous and so overwhelming happens that endangers thousands or millions, or in this film billions, of peoples’ lives is pretty intense. Throw in some cool action scenes and some great special effects, and voila, you’ve got the perfect popcorn film. But the one thing these movies make sure not do is give the audience too much time to think. Deep Impact offers time to think in spades.

I could go through and describe to you the details of the plot, tell you about all the different characters, but there’s really no point. The story is generic, and the characters are paper thin, largely due to the monstrous size of the cast. In fact, two seconds after the film was over I realized I couldn’t remember the name of a single character. None of that matters. This movie goes out of its way to force an American audience to honestly think about what they would do if a comet was coming towards earth, and the President of the United States tells you that only 1 million Americans can be saved.

Unlike Armageddon, which is about the people that save the world, this film is more interested in the people left back on Earth, waiting for the heroes to finish the job. It is much easier to identify with these people. Though we all would love to be the hero, the fact is I don’t know anyone that would qualify as capable to fly a ship to a comet, land on it, sink some nukes into it, and fly back out again. I barely felt a connection to the heroes at all, other than an affection for Robert Duvall. But the people left behind, waiting to hear their fates? I could relate to those people.

It takes a little over an hour to get there, but once it looks like the astronauts have failed, the president starts talking about making sure humans live on. This is when I started to become emotionally invested in the outcome. Without letting the people know, the government had spent months quietly building a shelter, the Ark, that is capable of keeping one million Americans alive. 200,000 scientists, doctors, artists, etc. have already been handpicked, but the other 800,000 will be picked at random by using the handy dandy Social Security Number. Oh, and if you’re over 50, you won’t get picked at all unless you’re part of the 200,000 professionals and experts.

The film sets very strict parameters, too. None of those “If I knew I was going to die I’d go out with a bang” ideas are permitted. The president declares marshal law, freezes all wages, and prices. The military runs the show, and those that step out of line will be met with a violent response. At one point, a character is watching television and sees a man lying down in the dirt, killed by a US soldier because he had raised his prices to make a profit and tried to complain at the violent way in which he was forced to end it. So, what do you do? You still have to survive. The comet isn’t coming for a while yet. You need money to eat, and as the president says, “you will pay your bills.”

And this is where the film excels. Every character in the movie starts finding out whether they are going to live or die. In each scene, I found myself thinking about how I would handle the different outcomes. What if I was too old? What if my neighbor was going to survive but not me? What if I was going to survive but not my neighbor? What if I was supposed to survive but there was a mistake on the list, and I was prevented from getting on the Ark. How would I live the remaining days of my life if I knew the world as I know it was coming to an end? What about the people that have to make the decisions about which scientists, doctors, artists and other necessary professionals get to live? Would I be able to live with myself after doing something like that? And what if I happened to be in the army? What would it do to me having to treat my fellow citizens the way the soldiers are forced to do in the film?

It is possible to ponder this because there are so many scenes where it looks like the characters are quietly struggling with these same questions. And it doesn't hurt that this film features two of the greatest actors of our time. Morgan Freeman does an outstanding job playing the president. Though he is not technically the main character, much of the movie rests on his shoulders. He is able to show a man who has been saddled with the greatest burden a leader can ever shoulder. He handles it not just with compassion, but with a sense of calm backed with steel that made me believe that he could keep a country from an all out panic. Vanessa Redgrave is barely given anything to do at all, yet I found her profoundly moving. There were entire scenes where all she did was sit and watch what was happening on television – her daughter, played by Téa Leoni, was the anchor of the news show that apparently everyone watched. Watching how she wordlessly reacted to hearing the president say that because of her age she wouldn’t even have the hope of being saved was one of the most powerful moments of the movie for me. Redgrave is a real treasure. The question that permeates the last half of the film is, “Would I be able to face knowing when I was going to die with dignity, or would I fall to pieces?” I am still trying to answer that, but a large part of me hopes that I would be able to deal with it as gracefully as Freeman and Redgrave.

The moment when I knew this film was different came during the death of two characters. Téa Leoni is standing on a beach in the arms of her estranged father, played by Maximilian Schell, watching a gigantic wave coming towards them. In most disaster flicks, I would be thinking about how awesome that wave looked. In this film, all I could think about was how scared I would be, and how much it would mean to me to be there facing the end with my own estranged father.


Oh, and there was one more question that kept going through my mind: “How on earth did Tea Leoni get so lucky as to have parents played by Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell!”