The China Syndrome Columbia TriStar Home Video   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	Back in the 1970s, when my own view of the world was being shaped, disaster films were all the rage. The first, for me, was Airport, starring Dean Martin and a young Jacqueline Bisset. But the seminal films were the ones from Irwin Allen, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and the first of these really threw me. I never had problems flying or venturing into skyscrapers, but I have yet to go on a cruise. I guess this means only what it means. But to me, the really frightening disaster movie of that period was The China Syndrome, which starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. Syndrome wasn't about planes or ships or buildings, but about nuclear power, and that was something everyone was talking about when I was a kid. Hell, they're still talking about it, although even our own president has trouble pronouncing the word properly. Anyway, The China Syndrome benefited from a real-life accident that happened within days of the film's opening, the Three Mile Island disaster. What happened there was pretty much what could have happened in the movie, which of course made the movie all the more terrifying. Syndrome starts off with scenes that set up the characters and explain the practical reality of nuclear power. We accompany a TV crew inside a power plant in Southern California; the cameraman is Douglas and the redhead reporter is Fonda. She's a lifestyle reporter who wants to do hard news, but whose bosses thinks she's better at being just another pretty face. Her job is to boost ratings, not dig for stories. That said, while they're at the plant, there's an accident and Douglas' cameraman gets it all on film (not videotape, folks; this was back in the day!). Of course, this isn't just any hot potato; this potato is heated by a nearly exposed nuclear core, and if Jack Lemmon's plant chief hadn't acted as quickly as he did, the whole plant might have, in effect, boiled over, burning a hole straight "down" to China. As the rest of the movie unfolds, that piece of film becomes the lynchpin of a complex set of motivations involving the TV station, the reporter, the cameraman, the power plant owners and the plant chief. It's a genuinely engrossing look at what happens when something goes wrong. One of the things that makes The China Syndrome so captivating is its lack of a musical score. There's a theme song at the start, played over footage of Fonda and Douglas driving up to the plant (through what could be a forest of towers and power lines: reinforcing our dependence on generated power). But while virtually all films use music to boost the emotion of the narrative, Syndrome's director James Bridges axed the score, allowing the force of the situation to propel the drama. The result is a fictional film that feels more like a documentary, with the only sound that of the machinery of life: the humming turbines, the air conditioning units, car engines and the like. The effect is startling; while this is a musically silent film, it's anything but quiet. Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon are superb here, drawing characters that seem like real people because they're so raw. Their emotions are real, written brilliantly and acted with great expertise. You almost forget you're watching acting, so forceful is the work. As Kimberly Wells, Fonda lampoons her own image as a Hollywood star, dealing with her on-air looks only because she must and delving into her character's frustration: she knows that beneath her pretty face is more than just another pretty face. Douglas, who was known more for television work at that time (The Streets of San Francisco), carves out a role that very much fits with where he'd go later in his career: the renegade, sexy, tough guy who's not afraid to go out on a limb. And Lemmon is pitch perfect as Jock Godell, the plant chief who saves the day, yet feels there's something terribly wrong with the plant and the company that would allow such shoddy workmanship. The plant is his life, almost like a child he's raised, and his internal conflicts are as palpable as his external ones. While the film was released on DVD some years ago, now there's a new edition that includes a lengthy and fascinating look behind the scenes at the film's genesis, its production and the effect it had on its stars' careers and the nation in general. If The China Syndrome had been just a disaster film -- albeit an amazing one -- that would have been reason enough for another look. But in the years since, we have learned that nuclear power isn't the godsend it was once hailed as. This film, then, is a nuclear-powered reminder of what almost went wrong. | February 2005   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. He and his family live in Lawrenceville, NJ, and he is Creative Director/Copy for a pharmaceutical ad agency in Philadelphia.	Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon are superb here, drawing characters that seem like real people because they're so raw. Their emotions are real, written brilliantly and acted with great expertise. You almost forget you're watching acting, so forceful is the work.