This movie, “The Brink of War”, much like the recent film, “The Invite,” is entirely dialogue. The logline: “As the Cold War threatens to erupt into nuclear catastrophe, President Ronald Reagan meets Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík for a historic summit, where two deeply distrustful adversaries must overcome political pressure, military hardliners, and their own convictions to decide whether the world moves toward peace—or annihilation, reminds everybody who is old enough how dire the Cold War was in 1986; we were at the brink of war.

This movie was at times boring; however, the conversations between Ronald Reagan (Jeff Daniels) and Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris) were fascinating as they both tried to negotiate to eliminate half of their nuclear weapons and then tried to destroy all of the nuclear weapons in the world. The major roadblock that caused the most disagreements was Ronald Reagan’s ambition to create something called SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), which would provide a shield in space to completely cover the United States in the event of any Nuclear War. Gorbachev thought that the United States could be in a position to destroy the Soviet Union without worry of any retribution if it had a shield to protect its country. After they had made the decision to eliminate all nuclear weapons, the SDI argument came at the end and ruined the entire negotiation.

One major acting standout in this story is J.K. Simmons, who plays George Shultz, Reagan’s Secretary of State. Shultz provides some of the best comments during the negotiations and has some great moments, pointing out the insanity of nuclear war and two countries having so many weapons to kill each other so many times over.

The one miracle that happened at the end of the negotiations, after all the agreements failed, was a very small and subtle agreement between Reagan and Gorbachev that set the stage for future trust between Reagan and Gorbachev. What followed in the next few years changed everything between the United States and the Soviet Union. In December 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Washington and signed the INF treaty that eliminated an entire class of nuclear missiles along with verification procedures.

In May-June 1988, Reagan went to Moscow, and during another meeting with Gorbachev, Reagan stated that he no longer considered the Soviet Union an evil empire. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and finally, in December 1989, the Cold War was essentially over. All of this stemmed from the meeting in Reykjavik in 1986, which was at first considered a failure, but in reality was the first step in finally eliminating the Cold War.

The Brink of War is a very well-acted and important history movie, which is a great movie for history buffs. As a history movie, I rank it a solid 85%. As a regular movie, I rank it around 80%, with the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 65% too low.