Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) with Paul Newman

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima during WWII (the first bomb was called Little Boy, the bombing of Nakasaki was Fat Man). I don't think Paul Newman would have participated in a film such as this unless he felt there was a compelling story to be told, so I was very curious to watch this film.

It attempts to dramatize the events leading up to the day of the bombing, focusing on the characters of scientist J. Robert "Oppie" Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz), his wife (Bonnie Bedelia), Army General Groves (Paul Newman) and the rest of the "Manhattan Project" team.

Another scientist is played by John Cusak. His is a compsite character of a number real life men exposed to lethal radiation during testing and died soon after being exposed. I wasn't expecting to see Laura Dern in this, as a nurse who falls in love with him. The late Natasha Richardson plays Oppie's mistress Jean Tatlock, who kills herself at the age of 30.

Newman is solid and does what he needs to do. Director Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields) makes films about once every five years. This time he creates a pretty straight-laced docudrama. Once again he joins with composer Ennio Morricone, whose score stirs up the film when it's needed. And there are some great shots by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who won an Oscar for 1977's Close Encounters.

I thought the film was about a half hour too long; a few domestic scenes were just not needed, including a few with Cusak and Dern. There is some tension toward the end, with the final scene taking place at a test site in the New Mexico desert in July 1945. The film ends with the closing title card -