Outbreak Movie Review

You know this story by now: Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo are medical researchers, sent to save a town infected with a virus brought in from an African monkey. Donald Sutherland is the bad guy: he wants to use the virus as a weapon. Morgan Freeman mediates, and Wolfgang Petersen directs.

The painfully obvious plotline makes this an overly long medical thriller with no thrill. All that’s left is some spewed-out medical terms, a sappy love story, and a few million bucks worth of military surplus jeeps and tanks. Luckily, Dustin and Co. are able to put this stuff to fairly good work, with strong performances by Hoffman and Russo saving the day, and the eerie feeling that all this military goofiness is just a bit too real.

There isn’t much else to say about Outbreak. I just don’t know where else you can see Dustin Hoffman chase a monkey.