The Manhattan Project

One of the movies that recently joined the FXM rotation and that I had never seen before is The Manhattan Project. So I recorded it with the intention of doing a post on it the next time it shows up on FXM. Well, it's got another airing tomorrow (May 30) at 4:00 AM so now it's time for the review.

John Lithgow plays John Mathewson, a scientist working in a lab presumably at MIT, although the filmmakers didn't use the name, only mentionng it's Cambridge, MA. Mathewson is working on purifying plutonium-239, a radioactive isotope that's highly useful in nuclear weapons systems, so you know that the military is going to take an interest in all of this. They inform Mathewson that the research of national security importance, which means they'd like him to go someplace a bit more out of the way to keep working on the project. Thankfully the Department of Energy (in on this because they're not military and because of the connection to atomic energy) has a front company in Ithaca, NY (also home to Cornell University) that advertises itself as working in radioctive isotopes for medical purposes.

Ithaca being home to a major university, it's not a surprise that the school is full of upper-middle-class kids who are very bright and in many cases likely to be interested in the sciences, which I'd think would be more likely if one or both of your parents was a professor in one of the sciences. One of the bright but somewhat misfit kids is Paul Stephens (Christopher Collet), who surprisingly is not the son of a college professor. Instead, his estranged father is an architect while Mom (Jill Eikenberry) is a real estate agent. That job gives the perfect in for our main characters to meet each other, as Mathewson goes to the real estate office where Paul's mom works to find a place to rent.

Mathewson takes an interest in Mrs. Stephens, and eventually learns that Paul is interested in the sciences and lasers and fun stuff like that which wasn't quite so common in the 1980s. So Mathewson offers to give Paul a bit of a tour of the laser with which he works, which seems like it would be a major breach of national security unless the DOE had specifically set up a sort of Potemkin village in the facility to show to visitors and students on field trips. Shockingly, they don't, and Mathewson shows Paul where the real research is going on, although at least not telling Paul what the real research is.

Paul is smart enough to figure out that something doesn't add up, but doesn't quite know what. Meanwhile, fellow student Jenny (Cynthia Nixon) is a reporter for the school newspaper whose curiosity is piqued when she hears Paul's story. So the two of them come up with a ridiculous plot to infiltrate the facility and get some of the material that Mathewson is working with. You'd think a 16-year-old who'd only been in the facility once would be foiled by the security system, but amazingly the plot works.

And then Paul discovers that what Mathewson is really working with is plutonium-239, and that it pretty much doesn't have any good uses other than in an atomic bomb. Jenny wants to do a story on what the facility is really doing, figuring that the people ought to know, but Paul has an even more audacious idea. He wants to enter the national science fair, and decides that the winning project would be to build an atomic bomb, in part to show that it can be done with knowledge obtainable off the shelf and in part because of pure curiosity. Jenny is smart enough to realize she's got the story of her life on her hands, and goes with Paul to New York.

But by this time security at the facility where Mathewson works have discovered the security breach. Mathewson is smart enough to put two and two together and figure out that Paul is a subject of interest, and the military, led by Lt. Col. Conroy (John Mahoney), goes to New York to apprehend Paul and Jenny. Thanks to a couple of fellow competitors who are up for a good science-based prank, they're able to escape and get the bomb, making their way back to Ithaca.

The Manhattan Project bombed (pun intended, of course) on its release, and to be honest it's easy to see why. The plot requires too much suspension of belief, and the movie doesn't quite have the heart that something like Gleaming the Cube does. Paul's being able to get into the research facility is just too unrealistic. It also doesn't help that Paul, despite showing the potential to become a brilliant scientist, is naïvely stupid in his real life, making him annoying at times. Never mind that Paul really did violate a whole bunch of laws like trespassing and larceny.

It's also interesting to see the contrast between the 1980s and today. Back then, in the aftermath of Watergate and all the conspiracy movies of the 1970s, it was natural that the military and the three-letter law enforcement agencies were obvious bad guys. In the last six or seven years, ever since the goodthinkful people learned such agencies could be weaponized to go after Icky Class politicians like Donald Trump and wrongthinkers who might support him, the portrayal of who the good guys and bad guys are has changed.

All that aside, The Manhattan Project is a bit of a flawed movie, although it does feature another good performance on the part of John Lithgow, not that we'd expect anything less. It's also a bit of a time capsule of the 1980s, so definitely worth at least one watch.