Film Review: The Brink of War

The Brink of War
Director: Michael Russell Gunn
SK Global and 2521 Entertainment
In Theaters: 08.14.2026

After director Sean McNamara and star Dennis Quaid gave us the insufferably cartoonish and worshipful Reagan in 2024, the bar was rather low for a movie about the 40th President. It was also a bar I was reluctant to even approach, especially when the Angel Studios banner was attached to it. Thus, I went into The Brink of War holding my breath. 

The Brink of War dramatizes the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, where President Ronald Reagan (Jeff Daniels, Arachnophobia, Dumb and Dumber) and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris, Chernobyl, Foundation)  meet in a tense attempt to negotiate sweeping nuclear-arms reductions. As Reagan’s advisers, including Secretary of State George Shultz (J.K. Simmons, Spider-Man, Whiplash), debate how far he should compromise, the president and Gorbachev confront the profound distrust separating their nations — and the possibility that a historic agreement could finally ease the threat of nuclear annihilation.

The film gives us a lionized portrait of the Gipper, and a title card caption on the end credits after the dedication to Schultz reads: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are children of God.” This was originally at the front of the film, but apparently someone at Angel got the memo that it was so in your face that it might as well be a Brian May guitar riff, followed by Freddie Mercury singing “Ronny… ah-AH! Savior of the universe!” The film tries to create the same kind of tense atmosphere of imminent annihilation that we got from the portrayal of the Cuban missile crisis in Thirteen Days (2000). It’s understandable why this would be the benchmark from a dramatic standpoint, but it’s historically hyperbolic at best. I was 11-years-old when these events took place, growing up in a pro-Reagan household. While I certainly remember the shadow of the nuclear threat throughout my childhood, the film and its title inflate the idea that ‘86 and the Reykjavík summit came at the height of international tension to add dramatic weight and further lean into the deification of Reagan. It also relies heavily on references to Reagan’s assassination attempt, and implications that he believed that he was spared by a ‘higher power.’ In reality, Reagan was quick to play the religion card with his base but wasn’t a churchgoer, and the primary “higher power” belief came from Nancy Reagan, who had obsessively consulted with astrologists before any of her husband’s travels after the attempt on his life, but that’s not the story an Angel Studios audience wants to hear.

The film settles into a workable dramatic structure as it follows  Reagan and Schultz as the point-of-view characters. On the whole, chronicling the negotiations. When the clunky dialogue isn’t being entirely expository, it’s often too melodramatic to be taken seriously, but there are scattered moments when it plays.  The film works reasonably well in a History for Dummies kind of way, and to some extent I’ll set aside my personal politics. The Brink of War actually came in above my expectations in terms of its portrayal of the people and events in comparison to McNamara’s film, but a movie shouldn’t be lauded simply for being just slightly above the level of shameless propaganda. 

Unlike Quaid, Daniels isn’t personally or politically invested in pushing the legend of Reagan on anyone, and that distance brings the character out of the one-dimensional world of hero worship and into the two-dimensional world of the movies. The performance reminded me of Kevin Costner as Robin Hood, sometimes trying and failing at a British accent and fairing best when he just concentrates on acting. When Daniels says the word “Well,” the performance dips into unintentional parody, and hard as he tries to make variations on “tear down that wall” sound natural, it never does. Harris fares far better, delivering a portrayal of Gorbachev that’s still hampered by a weak script, but elevated greatly by the actor’s refusal to play him as a villain. That’s more than can be said of the way the film deals with Branka Katić (Public Enemies) as Raisa Gorbachev, and Hope Davis (American Splendor) as Nancy Reagan. Raisa recalls one of the ‘Plastics’ in Mean Girls, hell-bent on making Nancy look bad, and Nancy is the regal and dutiful wife who outshines her just by being the Disney Princess that she is. Simmons adds presence as Shultz, but he’s slumming, and when he’s made to deliver her last long to the camera, it’s genuinely embarrassing. The ending also feels too unabashedly celebratory in light of where things stand with Russia today.

As an Angel Studios endeavor, The Brink of War surprised me by being watchable (I walked out halfway through Young Washington), but “it could have been a lot worse” is hardly a recommendation. A small step up in basic quality and competency doesn’t change the fact that this is a movie aimed at a highly conservative target audience living in an echo chamber. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews by Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: Ice Cream Man
Film Review: The Samurai and the Prisoner 

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