Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Outbreak

Go To

  • Complete Monster: Major General Donald "Donnie" McClintock is an Insane Admiral par excellence who sees the gruesome results of the Motaba virus and decides it would make an excellent bioweapon. Intent on keeping the truth about the virus secret no matter what, McClintock has an African military camp firebombed to kill everyone in it, infected or not, simply to keep the existence of the virus a secret. When the Motaba virus breaks out in a small American town named Cedar Creek, McClintock secretly withholds the cure to see the virus kill its way through the town before placing pressure on the American government to blow up the town and everyone in it. McClintock even personally attempts to shoot down Sam Daniels and his innocent pilot to stop them from getting the cure to Cedar Creek, knowingly and willingly trying to throw away thousands of lives for the sake of his own career advancement.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • A real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus occurred in Zaire only a few months after the film was released. And then, later on, there was bird flu.
    • And for the hat-trick, the most recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa infected two Americans who were recently (at the time of this posting anyway) brought BACK to the United States. Clearly, no one who made this decision to do this had seen this movie... or any movie dealing with our favorite microscopic mass-murderers. During that same outbreak, a Spanish missionary was brought back to Spain, which caused no end of controversy among Spanish public opinion. Not helping matters was the fact that said missionary not only didn't survive, but also managed to infect a nurse who became the first person ever to contract Ebola outside African soil. Fortunately, she recovered and no further infections were reported.
    • There was a bit of excitement over Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman, and Morgan Freeman being together in film at last, which has faded due to all three of them being accused of sexual misconduct as part of the Weinstein Effect.
    • The COVID-19 Pandemic has killed millions across the world. It originated in China and has forced the Chinese to quarantine entire cities and build specialized hospitals literally overnight, and forced Italy to virtually quarantine the entire country, and as the page will tell you, that was only the start of it. We're lucky it's nowhere near as lethal as the Motaba, because it is just as infectious.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • The White House Chief of Staff (played by the uncredited J. T. Walsh) is in exactly one scene in which he gives a speech that deftly balances Reasonable Authority Figure and Realpolitik:
      Chief of Staff: Alright, alright, please. Please. The president's ETA from the East Asian Economic Summit is about 20 hours from now. He wants a recommendation by then from this group. Now, as I understand it, you want to firebomb the town of Cedar Creek, California, population 2,600, with something called a fuel air bomb, the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in our arsenal. The way it works: it explodes, sucks in all available oxygen to the core, vaporizes everything within a mile of ground zero, men, women, children, and one airborne virus. Destruction complete, case closed, crisis over.
      [Takes a copy of the Constitution from his pocket]
      This is the Constitution of the United States. I've read it cover to cover. I don't find anything in it about vaporizing 2,600 American citizens. But it does say, several times, that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. So, a couple of things before Clean Sweep is even considered. One: unanimous, unwavering support for the president on this. And I mean, public. You're going to stand there shoulder to shoulder with him. He goes down, you go down. And the second thing is, I want an army of experts citing hundreds and thousands of lab experiments telling any idiot with a camera that there was no other way! Got that? Hmm? No member of this government is going to go sneaking off to the Washington Post, telling them how they were the "sole voice of opposition". If there is a voice of opposition out there, I want him in here, now!
      [Throws photos of virus victims on the table]
      Those are the citizens of Cedar Creek. Go on, look at them. These are not statistics, ladies and gentlemen. They're flesh and blood! And I want you to burn those into your memories. Because those images should haunt us until the day we die!
    • Michelle Joyner as the young mother saying goodbye to her family before being taken away for testing, putting a human face onto the massive epidemic.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Patrick Dempsey started the titular outbreak.

Top