Outbreak

A solid ’90s thriller, Outbreak follows several army doctors (including Dustin Hoffman’s Sam Daniels and Rene Russo’s Robby Keough) as they must race to contain and possibly cure a 100% fatal new disease that’s just landed on America’s shores. Filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen has infused Outbreak with an impressively propulsive feel that paves the way for an engrossing (and sporadically riveting) opening hour, as the director, working from Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool’s script, does an effective job of establishing the narrative’s myriad of protagonists and the progressively perilous situation in which they eventually find themselves – with Hoffman’s stirring leading-man turn matched by a supporting cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Morgan Freeman. It’s clear, too, that the movie benefits substantially from an ongoing emphasis on certain periphery happenings, with, for example, the journey that the aforementioned virus takes to reach America certainly far more interesting (and plausible) than one might’ve anticipated. And although the picture admittedly does falter in its third act (eg there’s perhaps just a little more action than the story really necessitates), Outbreak nevertheless (and for the most part) comes off as a top-tier bit of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking.

*** out of ****