Amazon.com Essentials:
James Bridges (Urban Cowboy, Bright Lights, Big
City) directed this 1979 film that became a worldwide
sensation when, just weeks after its release, the Three Mile Island
nuclear accident occurred. Jane Fonda (Klute, Julia) plays a
television news reporter who is not taken very seriously until a
routine story at the local nuclear power plant leads her to what may
be a cover-up of epic proportions. She and her cameraman, played by
Michael Douglas (Wall
Street, American
President), hook up with a whistleblower at the plant, played
by Jack Lemmon (Save
the Tiger, Missing). Together
they try to uncover the dangers lurking beneath the nuclear reactor
and avoid being silenced by the business interests behind the
plant. Though topical, the film (produced by Douglas) works on its own
as a socially conscious thriller that entertains even as it spurs its
audience to think. --Robert Lane
