Angel Studios' 'Brink of War': Static Reagan-Gorbachev Drama
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "The Brink of War", directed by Michael Russell Gunn and distributed by Angel Studios, dramatizes the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev over two days of nuclear disarmament talks, and opens wide on Friday with a PG rating.
- Jeff Daniels plays Reagan and Jared Harris plays Gorbachev, with J.K. Simmons as Secretary of State George Shultz, Hope Davis as Nancy Reagan (who never travels to Reykjavik), and Branka Katić as Raisa Gorbachev in what the review calls the film's most colorful performance.
- Angel Studios previously released "Young Washington" over the Fourth of July, grossing nearly $47 million in theaters, and "The Brink of War" shares that film's textbook American patriotism, per the review.
- The film's political framing takes Reagan's side unambiguously, emphasizing American honor, freedom, and statesmanship, while gliding over domestic opposition to the Strategic Defense Initiative and portraying Gorbachev as an aloof, unknowable figure.
- The review criticizes the film's lack of compelling inner lives for its leads, noting that Reagan's only unguarded moment is spilling chicken salad sandwich filling on his shirt.
- The final act rushes toward a denouement that elides the fact that the Reykjavik Summit was a short-term failure, folding it into the clearer success of the next year's INF Treaty, closing with the line: "A journey of a thousand miles doesn't begin with the most incredible arms deal in history — it begins with a single step."
Why it matters: The film is Angel Studios' second major historical-patriotic release of the year after "Young Washington" ($47M gross), positioning the faith-based distributor to expand beyond biopics into Cold War diplomatic drama — but Variety's review suggests the audience for dry two-man table-reads may be thinner than the Fourth of July crowd.
Ask SkimNews
