This movie is well worth watching.
The vicious cycle of events had started in Motaba River Valley in Zaire. In July 1967, a deadly virus, which caused deaths of tens of people in the Mercenary Camp, was discovered by the army. The doctor of the camp wanted supplies to treat the patients. However, the army officials preferred bombing the camp in an attempt to erase the evidence of the virus's existence along with the potential carriers of the virus. Although, they developed the antiserum, "the E-1101," from a blood sample taken before the bombing, they kept it as a secret to be able to use the virus as a biological weapon.

The virus showed up in a village in the same area again. Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) was sent to the area to take a close look at the incident without being notified about the previous experience in the area. His superiors did not share the information about the previous incident with him. Actually they hid it. When Colonel Daniels and his team arrived at the place of incident, it was too late; the entire village was exterminated by the virus. When they arrived there, Major Salt (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), who had never been in the field before, could not stand the horrible scene that he saw in the village and took off the helmet of his protective suit in an attempt to vomit. By chance, the virus was not airborne and nothing happened to him at the time. After they took their samples, they burned down the village since there was nothing to be saved there.

After Colonel Daniels came back to the United States, he recommended his superior Brigadier General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman) to inform the public about the incident in Zaire believing that they found a new deadly virus which has a 100% mortality rate. However, instead of doing so, Brigadier General Ford reminded him of another two incidents in which Colonel Daniels previously recommended informing the public but happened to be wrong. So the story was not publicized believing that the virus was contained. Then, Major General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland) and Brigadier General Ford conducted their own analysis on the sample which was brought by Colonel Daniels. They found that this was the same virus that they had kept as a secret for thirty years. However, they once again wanted to cover the story up instead of sharing the information with Colonel Daniels at least, if not the general public.

However, the unexpected happened and the virus found its way to the United States. The virus was carried by a monkey which was smuggled into the United States from Zaire. Jimbo Scott (Patrick Dempsey) took the monkey to a small town called Cedar Creek and tried to sell it there but he couldn't. So Jimbo drove to San Francisco and released the monkey on the way, and then got on an airplane for Boston. At first, it was not airborne and was spread through direct human contact, such as sharing food, sneezing, coughing. Jimbo got sick on the plane, however, as far as I could observe, no one cared, including himself. In Boston, he got off the plane and met his girlfriend. Then, they both got very sick and died at the hospital. Unfortunately, in a short period of time, the deadly virus mutated and began to spread at an epidemic rate killing people in a matter of hours in Cedar Creek. When the local officials understood that they were unable to treat the disease at the time, the United States Army was ordered to contain it within the town by all means necessary. Then, panic occurred in the town since no one informed the public about what the government was doing and would do to cure the disease and the only announcement made was that there was a curfew. A couple of people attempted to go through the cordon established by the army; however, they were stopped by random shooting.

Colonel Daniels was constantly threatened by his superiors in order to prevent him from digging out the truth and to protect the secret of the biological weapon. After a while, Brigadier General Ford brought "the E-1011 antibody" at the hospital in Cedar Creek to see whether it was working for the virus or not. Unfortunately, that antibody did not work for the mutated virus. When Colonel Daniels saw "the E-1011 antibody," he quickly understood that his superiors were well aware of the virus all along and had had the solution to solve the problem before it got worse; however, they had simply chosen to keep it as a secret not to disclose the biological weapon.

The officials in the White House thought that they could not eliminate the virus and decided to blow up the town to stop it from spreading further since they realized that it would exterminate the entire nation in a matter of days. Although this decision meant sacrificing the lives of all of the people in the town, Major General McClintock put it as "casualties of war." So the top officials started the countdown for exploding the town.

According to Colonel Daniels and his team, the solution was to obtain an antibody from "the host" which carries the virus. Colonel Daniels discovered that the carrier of the virus was the monkey. A woman from Palisades called the center and said that she knew where the monkey was after Colonel Daniels broadcasted the description of the monkey and the phone number of the Center for Disease Control through invading the broadcasting studio of the KAEF-TV, in Santa Rosa, California. Then, Colonel Daniels went there and found the monkey. Eventually, Colonel Daniels and his team developed the antiserum and saved the town in the nick of the time.

Note: I do not discuss the scientific flaws in the movie... Hey,remember that this is just a movie!!!

Review this book