When Cold War films are mentioned first things that come to mind are James Bond adventures, Ramboesque action, intense political drama, bleak spy films or apocalyptic visions like The Day After. However, one of the most important and the most iconic Cold War films belongs to a different genre. It is WarGames, 1983 techno-thriller directed by John Badham, also known as one of the rare examples of the genre marketed primarily to teenage audience.

The protagonist, played by Matthew Broderick, is a teenager. David Lightman is 17-year high school student from Seattle. He is not very successful at school, but he compensates this with immense talent for everything related to computers, like the video games or hacking. One day he manages to hack the phone line of what he believes to be a company producing latest video games, gets connected to its computer and begins to play game called Global Thermonuclear War. He plays as a Soviet and ordering massive nuclear strike on USA. What he doesn’t know is that his opponent is actually WOPR, supercomputer which is supposed to assist NORAD in detecting and co-ordinating response to real Soviet strike; the machine, which is programmed to play simulations, interprets David’s game as the real thing and begins to act accordingly. This results in series of incidents and David is arrested and brought to NORAD headquarters to explain himself. There he realises that WOPR would ultimately start actual thermonuclear war and that the only way to stop him is by contacting its retired and embittered creator Dr. Stephen Falken (played by John Wood).

WarGames had its premiere in one of the most critical moments of Cold War, when the relations between two nuclear powered superpowers were deteriorating so rapidly that many believed the actual nuclear conflict to be inevitable. Increased tension on both sides made even more likely for such scenario to develop due to an accidental technical malfunction that could have been interpreted as undeniable sign of First Strike. After the Cold War many such incidents became known to the public and the most notorious one, in which Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov became saviour of the world, occurred only few months after the film’s premiere. The film clearly points to the problems and unimaginably terrible dilemmas that would occur to those having to decide whether to trust faulty machine and early warnings systems or enemy’s common sense in the age of Mutually Assured Destruction. The point is well illustrated at the very beginning of the film, when two USAF servicemen (played by John Spencer and Michael Madsen) fail to launch nuclear missiles because one of them, not knowing that it was actually a drill, in the last moment has second thoughts about murdering tens of millions of innocent people.

The film serves as time capsule that shows the anxiety of those times, often hard to imagine to generations that grew up after the fall of Berlin Wall. WarGames serves as a time capsule in another context, by showing the emerging home computer technology and embryonic hacker subculture (which was the result of extensive research by scriptwriters Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parks) and the world in which computer security was so primitive or simply non-existent that the idea of teenager penetrating the most sensitive national defence system didn’t look outlandish at all. This subject was something quite suitable for John Badham, one of the most underrated directors of his time, who had dealt with challenges and possible abuses of new technology in his previous film Blue Thunder. His skilful direction managed to make hacking – even in the age of dial up connections, 1200 bps modems and rather primitive text-based interfaces – look exciting. He had very good cast at his disposal. Young Matthew Broderick, who would later become one of the big teen stars of the decades, played character for whom the audience roots for even after he accidentally sets nuclear holocaust in motion; his combination of arrogance, childish innocence and ultimate desire to set things right is well portrayed. The other members of the cast are very good, like Dabney Coleman as bureaucratic villain and Barry Corbin (future star of Northern Exposure) as folksy general in charge of NORAD who doubts that machine should make decisions instead of humans.

Ally Sheedy, who plays David’s girlfriend, is also good in her role that projects “girl next door” quality. On the other hand her character, while appealing, makes the film lose its focus a bit. In the second part WarGames shows some problems, like the seemingly ordinary teenager David suddenly turning into MacGyver/Bond that could easily escape from one of the world’s most guarded locations. The famous ending, in which David in the last moment teaches WOPR the lesson about futility of global thermonuclear war might look a little bit too preachy with its pacifist message. But this is message that the world now, when the nuclear powers are back on collision course, would need perhaps more than in 1983.

RATING: 7/10 (++)

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