Film

...A domestic drama that eschews all spectacle, Testament portrays the hopeless plight of a suburban California family exposed to slow but certain death by radiation after a nuclear attack...

...The revolution picks up momentum when Russell's photographic trick inspires renewed combat...

...Though his faked photo is spurring the Sandinista victory, photos from the same trip—of partisans in the Sandinista hideout—are stolen by a Somoza agent and used to finger rebels...

...haunting, realistic scenes of urban street fighting...

...Those who understand that there will be no meaningful survival following a nuclear war will be doubly disappointed by Testament: It is sorrowful confirmation of that fact, and it is an artless work riddled with cliches...

...Credit for gutsy work should go to screenwriters Ron Shelton and Clayton Froh-man, and to director Spottiswoode...

...Had ABC decided to make and broadcast Testament instead of The Day After, we probably would have been spared the current controversy over the value of films depicting nuclear war...

...The film itself is filled with images quite as memorable as the ones captured by Russell: a DC-3, at Somoza's orders, dropping bombs on Managua...

...But because he has already been the indirect cause of one death and fears that his failure to provide the doctored photo would result in more deaths, Russell does the deed...

...The Sandinistas, who already control much of the countryside, begin making inroads into the capital city...

...Russell eventually finds rebel headquarters, and he discovers that Raphael is, indeed, dead...

...But again, Russell finds that his actions have had unforeseen consequences...

...What's more, he has increasingly come to believe that discovering truth is more complicated than merely recording events on film...

...Under Fire is more than a celebration of the extraordinary courage of war correspondents, who are depicted as taking risks as dangerous as those faced by the combatants...

...What is most disconcerting is that the inhabitants of Hamlin, California, do not worry about the meaning of this radically altered state of affairs...

...Acting on a tip that Nicaragua offered "a neat little war and a nice hotel," Russell Price (Nick Nolte), a free-lance news photographer, Claire Stryker (Joanna Cas-sidy), a radio reporter, and Alex Grazier (Gene Hackman), a Time correspondent, join the motley press corps working out of the Continental Hotel in Managua...

...people just go about their grim and ultimately futile business of day-to-day survival...

...And though it may inspire concern among the heretofore unconcerned, it could just as easily be exploited by the Right as an argument for a nuclear deterrent...

...This is achieved, in great part, by the visually disturbing contrast between the extravagance of Somoza and his entourage and the poverty of the people...

...Cynical and somewhat jaded from witnessing other wars, Russell is initially unconcerned with the reasons for the revolution against Somoza...

...At one point, he fails to warn a group of rebels of the presence of an American mercenary, who subsequently kills a young guerrilla Russell had befriended...

...Filmmaker Roger Spottiswoode, like Warren Beatty, director of Reds, has provided an unabashedly leftist view of individuals caught in revolution...

...I think I finally saw one too many bodies," he later confesses...

...No one would have cared...

...Russell's photo of Raphael also brings Alex back to Nicaragua, where he is killed by the National Guard as Russell shoots the action...

...Set in Nicaragua during the final days of the Sandinista uprising against the So-moza dictatorship, Under Fire uses the conventions of a romantic adventure story to examine journalistic practices...

...It raises questions about journalistic ethics and responsibility...

...It scrutinizes the possibility of reporters remaining neutral while under fire...

...And without bludgeoning the viewer with scenes of bloody oppression, Under Fire provides some insight as to why social upheaval occurs...

...But his stance of professional neutrality and objectivity is shaken when he begins to realize that his own disengagement results in unforeseen and tragic consequences...

...It examines the power of images and the ways they are exploited by competing sides...

...The revolutionaries entreat Russell to fake a photo showing Raphael alive, saying it would forestall delivery of an American arms shipment to the Somoza regime and help the revolution...

...Alex's love affair with Claire is disintegrating as her interest in him wanes and their career choices conflict...

...With one exception, we don't see the physical effects of radiation...

...Nor, for that matter, does anyone express an opinion as to why the apocalypse came about...

...On his first feature assignment, Spottiswoode has performed like an old hand...

...The film's heart is in the right place, but it has almost no mind...

...At first, Russell protests that he is, after all, a journalist with a professional commitment to reporting the truth...

...We do see the community standing intact, though just about the entire population of planet Earth has been wiped out...

...Like Reds, it features forceful performances by famous actors, exceptional cinematography (by John Alcott, who did the color films of Stanley Kubrick), and imaginative editing (by John Blum, a veteran of The French Lieutenant's Woman and Gandhi...

...Russell learns of a potential scoop: Raphael, a fictionalized Sandinista leader, may be alive, even though Somoza had jubilantly announced that the revolutionary commander was killed in an ambush...

...Russell also loves Claire, but he keeps his distance because of his friendship with Alex...

...When Alex leaves the scene, the Russell-Claire affair heats up, and so does the course of political events...

...Are such movies a public service or propaganda...

...I take pictures...

...Even after Russell is beaten and jailed by the National Guard, he insists, "I don't take sides...