{"id":5749,"date":"2026-08-12T05:36:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5749"},"modified":"2026-08-12T05:36:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:36:02","slug":"the-brink-of-war-review-reagan-and-gorbachev-engage-in-unengaging-verbal-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5749","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Brink of War\u2019 Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tThere was a time when talky slabs of recent political history like \u201cThe Brink of War,\u201d carried by skilled name actors who aren\u2019t quite stars, were largely the preserve of Emmy-chasing TV networks. Today, with a bit of added Christian-right rhetoric, they\u2019re ready for the big screen, as the growing faith-based film industry expands its palette in terms of subject matter \u2014 but not cinematic style, as evidenced by this dutifully drab gray-flannel enterprise from writer-director Michael Russell Gunn.<\/p>\n

Read more Jenna Ortega \u2018Would Go All Day\u2019 Without Food or Water as a Child Star to Make Sure She Wasn\u2019t \u2018In the Way of Anybody\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest from so-called \u201cvalues-based\u201d distributor Angel Studios comes hot on the heels of their Fourth of July release \u201cYoung Washington,\u201d which has drummed up nearly $47 million in theaters, and shares with that Great Man biopic the kind of textbook American patriotism that recalls, well, a certain kind of textbook. The story of how the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev paved the way for the next year\u2019s nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, it feels veritably designed (right down to its PG rating) to bore kids in history classrooms for generations to come. Adult audiences may be more willing when \u201cThe Brink of War\u201d opens wide on Friday, but it\u2019s doubtful they\u2019ll be much more entertained. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYoung Washington\u201d was stolidly old-fashioned, but still rousing in its gung-ho way. \u201cThe Brink of War\u201d is a far dustier, more static affair: Its drama is all in two aging men seated at a table, arguing with each other over two days about nuclear disarmament in a remote Icelandic consulate building. That doesn\u2019t have to be dull, of course, and if you squint a little at the screen, you can just about see the first-rate Broadway play that could emerge from this material \u2014 with no casting changes required \u2014 if the telling were just a little more tense, and the writing just a little more witty. <\/p>\n

\n\tGunn\u2019s stiff script is attentive to the political dynamics and rhetorical thrust of the talks, and if its repeated emphasis on American honor, freedom and statesmanship makes for a somewhat pious exercise, you can\u2019t deny the narrative stakes are high. The lines of conflict are established early and clearly: Where Gorbachev merely wants to discuss the banning of ballistic missiles, Reagan\u2019s equal emphasis on human rights \u2014 in particular, the Soviet Union\u2019s restrictions on Western travel for its citizens \u2014 complicates the discussion, while his insistence on pushing the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative continues to be a sticking point for the other side. (No surprise that the film glides over American political opposition to the latter proposal, unambiguously taking Reagan\u2019s side on all fronts.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s crucially lacking here is a particularly compelling sense of Reagan and Gorbachev as human characters. Jeff Daniels and Jared Harris, respectively, put forward solidly recognizable impressions of the men we knew from televised speeches and newscasts, but aren\u2019t given many notes to play: The leaders\u2019 inner lives are limited to standard-issue exchanges with their wives about professional duty and strain, which don\u2019t vary much in tone from the pithy aphorisms they share with their right-hand men about diplomacy, or lack thereof. Even when religion comes up for discussion, it\u2019s in predictably on-message Angel Studios fashion, as Reagan chides his atheist opponent for \u201cdenying [his people] the hereafter.\u201d (\u201cThis is worse than propoganda!\u201d protests one of Gorbachev\u2019s aides; irony is not one of the film\u2019s stronger suits.) At one point, Reagan spills some chicken salad sandwich filling on his shirt; it\u2019s about the most unguarded moment we get. <\/p>\n

Read more WGA Slams David Ellison\u2019s Plan to Pull Paramount From California: \u2018This Type of Behavior Is Precisely Why the Merger Should Be Blocked\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tReagan also, naturally, gets the leading perspective, as well as the most generous sounding boards in the supporting ensemble: not just his wife Nancy (Hope Davis), who doesn\u2019t travel to Reykjavik but provides repeated counsel over the phone, but his Secretary of State George Shultz (played with an air of gruff, salt-of-the-earth decency by J.K. Simmons), on hand to straighten out Team America\u2019s priorities when the negotiations go awry. <\/p>\n

\n\tThough the film\u2019s lens is consistently ennobling \u2014 abetted by everything from DP Magdalena G\u00f3rka\u2019s sober official-portrait lighting to Austin Wintory\u2019s overbearing score \u2014 Daniels gets Reagan\u2019s combination of folksy squareness and flintier social conservatism. It\u2019s a more substantial portrayal than Dennis Quaid\u2019s in the tackily propagandistic 2024 biopic \u201cReagan,\u201d though we\u2019re still left with the impression that, in the ranks of American presidents on screen, the erstwhile movie star remains a less dynamic movie subject.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris, meanwhile, plays Gorbachev as an altogether more aloof, intractable and unknowable figure, which is precisely how the film wants it \u2014 though Branka Kati\u0107 gives the canniest, funniest performance here as his watchful, image-conscious wife Raisa, here placed in a remote PR war with the U.S. First Lady where, yet again, America gets to come out on top. The film could use a few more such colorful secondary strands adjoining the main conflict, though one subplot involving a maybe-romance between two jaded journalists assigned to the summit is oddly framed and abruptly dropped. <\/p>\n

\n\tFairly deliberate for much of its two-hour running time, \u201cThe Brink of War\u201d suddenly races toward a denouement in its final quarter-hour \u2014 somewhat eliding the fact that the Reykjavik Summit was, at least in the short term, a failure, with the two men\u2019s talks ultimately stalling, and folding it into the clearer success story of the next year\u2019s treaty. As the film\u2019s single most lumpen line of dialogue reminds us at the close: \u201cA journey of a thousand miles doesn\u2019t begin with the most incredible arms deal in history \u2014 it begins with a single step.\u201d Gunn\u2019s film, on the other hand, is content to skip a few steps where necessary.<\/p>\n

Read more Zoe Salda\u00f1a\u00a0Says It\u2019s \u2018Frustrating\u2019 When Political Questions Only Get Asked to Actors of Color and Women: \u2018That\u2019s Incredibly Limiting\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\u2018The Brink of War\u2019 Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n

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\t\tReviewed online, Aug. 11, 2026. MPA Rating: PG. Running time: 119 MIN.<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n

    \n
  • \nProduction:<\/strong>
    \nAn Angel Studios, SK Global Entertainment, 2521 Entertainment presentation of an SK Global Entertainment, Designed Epic production. Producers: Michael Russell Gunn, John Logan Pierson.\t\t\t<\/li>\n
  • \nCrew:<\/strong>
    \nDirector, screenplay: Michael Russell Gunn. Camera: Magdalena G\u00f3rka. Editors: Mike Sale, Laura Yanovich. Music: Austin Wintory.\t\t\t<\/li>\n
  • \nWith:<\/strong>
    \nJeff Daniels, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons, Hope Davis, Branka Kati\u0107, Aya Cash, Guy Burnet, John Ross Bowie, Adrian Rawlins, J\u00f3hannes Haukur J\u00f3hannesson, Vladimir Kulich, Stephen Brennan. \t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris and J.K. Simmons star in Michael Russell Gunn’s ‘The Brink of War,’ a waxworks-y historical drama from Angel Studios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4470,3290,4471,602,4472,4473],"class_list":["post-5749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-angel-studios","tag-j-k-simmons","tag-jared-harris","tag-jeff-daniels","tag-michael-russell-gunn","tag-the-brink-of-war"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018The Brink of War\u2019 Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5749\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018The Brink of War\u2019 Review: Reagan and Gorbachev Engage in Unengaging Verbal Battle - Relocation Observer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris and J.K. 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