Plot:
Two trains crash somewhere in Russia, one carrying a nuclear payload. A nuclear explosion follows the crash and the world is on alert... However, White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) doesn't think it was an accident... Special Forces Intelligence Officer Colonel Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) doesn't think so either... Together they must unravel a conspiracy that goes from Europe to New York, to stop a terrorist who has no demands... - M. Belanger

Comment:
This a pure action movie, one of the best of this kind I've seen recently, whose main negative point is that it follows far too closely all the cliches of the genre without adding anything particularly new or memorable to it. In fact it features car chases, hand to hand fights, technological espionage, explosions and so on but fortunately no lame love story until the very latest scene!

The plot is based on the typical terrorist that wants to nuke New York, so it can be more or less summarized as a big chase, firstly in Vienna featuring expensive cars, gun fights and explosions, then in Russia using satellites recognition and military helicopters, finally a man hunt in the Manhattan crowd. All these parts are very catching, the action is so intense and the tension rarely relaxes.

The attempt to create a human background to the terrorist fails badly, the whole Bosnian sub-plot is the worst part of the movie both because there is no action (ie. the only reason of this movie) and because this seems to be the most questionable portion of the story. However, unlike most movie of this genre, there aren't many evident holes in the plot and even the technological bits seem fairly plausible... well, maybe a satellite cannot shot photos with such a low angle on the horizon but this is not crucial for the development of the plot.

The finale is pretty standard, the terrorists dead, a (nuclear) bomb with a countdown, the two main characters fiddling with it... there was no "should I cut the red or the white wire first" but there was the typical "how many times have you done this (ie. disarming a nuclear weapon) before" so I haven't been completely deceived!

From this description you may be wondering if George Clooney was playing the James Bond character... Although The Peacemaker has many things in common with every past and probably future James Bond movie, we are missing thousands of 'enemies' firing with any kind of weapon against the hero without hitting him, there are no love scenes and anyway Nicole Kidman is already too famous to be a 'simple' Bond girl!