Review – Outbreak

No doubt prompted by the outbreak of public interest in hemorrhagic fevers sparked by The Hot Zone, this film gives us a what-if scenario in which a deadly virus gets loose in a small California town. With Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland and Dustin Hoffman in the cast I expected something a little more thought-provoking than this, especially because the script relies more on histrionic speechifying than on realistic communication. Still, I guess I’ve seen worse medical thrillers. It’s also a little hard on the simians, but since part of the point here is that the virus spreads in part due to the seizure of monkeys from their natural habitat, I suppose a certain amount of rhesus violence is inevitable or at least integral to the plot. Mildly amusing