Deterrence: political thriller.  Starring Kevin Pollak, Timothy Hutton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sean Astin, Bajda Djola and Clotilda Courau. Written and directed by Rod Lurie.  Rated R. Now Playing at Bay Area Theaters.

Let’s pretend I’m President of the United States (OK, if you want to be President, go ahead. This isn’t a schoolyard. I won’t get jealous. Stop whining already, will you!?). Let’s say it’s the 2008 election and I’m the un-elected incumbent (due to the death of my predecessor, lucky bastard).  And I’m campaigning in the Colorado primary.  In the middle of winter (by 2008 Presidential primaries are apparently starting in January).  Now, don’t you think that I (or my campaign manager) would at least check the weather?  Don’t you think the Secret Service would remark, “Mr. President, there’s a major blizzard coming in. You can’t go there.”?

According to Deterrence, a spectacularly stupid and pretentious thriller now roaming the nation’s theaters like Dan Quayle begging for a speaking engagement, it’s certainly possible, even likely such a scenario could occur.  It’s also likely, the film insists, that the Korean situation would be so bad, the U.S. would pull all its forces (except for one carrier) out of the chronically explosive Middle East and so open a door for Saddam Hussein’s son and heir Uday, to invade Kuwait again before turning his tanks on Saudi Arabian oil fields. 

It doesn’t stop there.  Never mind, we’re told, that America is about to go to war with China over the Koreas (I think it would be over Taiwan).  Iraq and Kuwait, because of their oil reserves, loom larger.  So large that, I, the President of the United States, would give Uday and his Revolutionary Guard a mere one hour and twenty minutes to pull out of Kuwait or else I’d nuke Baghdad to oblivion! (In other words, suddenly, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is suddenly revealed to be a willful sociopath. Oh, also, I’m Jewish and have some issues there, too.)

And all this, while snowbound in a roadside diner in the tiny town of Aztec, Colorado, where I’m lucky to also have my Chief of Staff and my Secretary of State by my side to not only advise but to engage in contrived debates about war, race, politics and justice. And not only among ourselves, but also with the cross-sectioned microcosm of “normal” Americans (one of them an emigrant Quebecois waitress) who are trapped there with me.

On paper, Deterrence sounds like it has possibilities as a snappy satiric melding of Dr. Strangelove and The Man Who Came to Dinner. As a comedy, the contrivances would be wholly acceptable fodder for hilarity and pointed commentary on human short-sightedness and the obtuseness of those in power. (Imagine, if you will, the Prez snapping at his Secretary of State: “I found flipping you burgers at McDonald’s and made you Secretary of State! You’ll bomb Iraq when I tell you to!”)

But writer-director Rod Lurie, a former film critic himself, didn’t make that movie, he made this one. He is pursuing Big Significant Ideas at the cost of common sense and any honest drama.  This is meant to be a chamber drama on the scale of Fail-Safe (and too damn bad there wasn’t a fail-safe device to keep this film on the shelves where it has apparently sat since 1998). But it’s really only a CNN Crossfire debate disguised as one.  The characters don’t exist as characters but as constructs in a dramatically hyped talkfest about foreign policy.  The single set and cramped visual style is supposed to help build tension ala 12 Angry Men, but induce a weird tense torpor.  Most of us don’t want a nuclear war to happen, but the plot is constructed on such thin rickety legs perceptive viewers may themselves gripped by the suspense of wondering when it will all collapse into silliness.

. . . and it does.  John LeCarre might get away with the twist at the end, but it’s handled so badly it provokes a sneer in even the most tolerant viewer. For example, Kevin Pollak as President Walter Emerson, Timothy Hutton as the Chief of Staff and Sheryl Lee Ralph as the Secretary of State, are conveniently sent outside in the middle of the storm for a hush-hush.  Not to keep it from the other characters (who have been listening in on everything anyway), but (a) to keep it from us and (b) to make room for a scene of trumped up violence. The plot is a total cheat from start to finish.

As for the cast, Kevin Pollak is simply dull when he needs to be mysterious. The rest of the actors do their best with the hokey overblown material, but are finally reduced to hoary declamatory performances, especially Sean Astin in the role of the local redneck galoot who gets to tell President Pollak,  “We’re with ya, Mr. President! Turn them A-rabs into crispy critters!” What’s worse, the movie treats his grossly stereotyped character as morally inferior to the President who’s supposed to be something of a bad guy.

Only Timothy Hutton, as the Chief of Staff, seems truly centered in his role as the opportunistic Chief of Staff, sniffing the political fallout of every move. He’s on top of the implication of every action like a hungry, well-muscled and very sharp-eyed cat. 

Emerson’s final act is also questionably motivated and again seems to exist so writer-director Lurie can score easy points (He seems to think racism is at the heart of it all . . .but that leaky argument can’t be gone into here).  Stylistically, he seems to want to spark memories of Clint Eastwood at the end of A Fistful of Dollars as Pollak strides out of the diner with a cigar stuck in his puss, popping off quips like the Man with No Name.  Except that movie was actually funny.

In the press notes, Lurie declares his intention with the movie is to spark debates at coffeehouses afterwards. But I’m afraid the debates will run along the lines of “Which movie is worse? Deterrence or Return to Me”?” 

Deterrence should be interred. Quickly. The stench is spreading.