'Brink of War' Review: Reykjavik Film Too Kind to Reagan
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- "The Brink of War" dramatizes the October 1986 Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, relying on transcripts and interviews with the late George Shultz, to whom the film is dedicated
- Reagan's portrayal is too generous, the reviewer argues: in reality, Reagan was nervous, relied on note cards, and once dropped all his papers, while the film shows him as highly prepared and teasing his team about being Democrats
- Nuclear-abolition agreement at Reykjavik was an improvised moment, not a premeditated Reagan masterstroke as the film implies; both delegations were surprised by the full-elimination proposal
- Mikhail Gorbachev is depicted as melodramatic — slamming tables and whining about dairy technology — but the real quote was a restrained, sarcastic zinger, and Shultz recalled him as "brisk, impatient, and confident"
- The title "The Brink of War" is misleading: Soviet-American tensions were far higher during Reagan's first term under Yuri Andropov, including the 1983 Korean airliner shootdown, the "Evil Empire" speech, and the Grenada invasion
- Veteran diplomat Rozanne Ridgway, who led key negotiations with the Soviets, does not appear in the film, while Nancy Reagan is unfairly cast as a catty flake envying Raisa Gorbacheva despite no evidence she was jealous over astrology
Why it matters: The film positions itself as a corrective to decades of liberal dismissals of Reagan's arms-control seriousness, but the review argues it overcorrects by scripting Reagan's confidence and recasting Gorbachev as theatrical. For viewers with no living memory of 1986, these distortions — from the fabricated premeditated-abolition masterstroke to the catty, astrology-obsessed Nancy Reagan — risk cementing a partisan mythology where nuanced diplomatic history once stood.
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