Chain of Command (2000 film)
| Chain of Command | |
|---|---|
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British DVD cover from 2006
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| Written by | T.L. Lankford |
| Directed by | John Terlesky |
| Starring |
Roy Scheider Patrick Muldoon Michael Biehn |
| Theme music composer | Joseph Williams |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Paul Hertzberg J.P. Pettinato |
| Cinematography | Maximo Munzi |
| Editor(s) | Daniel Duncan |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Production company(s) | Cinetel Films |
| Release | |
| Original network | HBO |
| Original release |
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Chain of Command is a 2000 political thriller TV film, produced by Cinetel Films and starring Roy Scheider and Patrick Muldoon. It premiered on HBO in July 2000.
New Secret Service agent Mike Connelly, assigned to protect President-elect Jack Cahill, becomes uneasy having to protect a person who is having an affair with a friend's wife. Connelly feels even worse about it after preventing an assassination attempt aboard Cahill's plane where a flight attendant is accidentally killed in the process. Sensing Connelly's discomfort around Cahill, his boss reassigns him to the team that protects the "nuclear football" as soon as Cahill becomes president.
In the film, the "nuclear football" briefcase contains a high-tech laptop computer, which can only be operated through a two key system (one key operated by the president and the other by the agent on "football duty") along with thumbprint and eye retina scans from the president.
After the newly inaugurated president has been planning a meeting with Fung, the President of Taiwan to discuss the strained relationship between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, one of the Secret Service agents returns home to find that his family is being held hostage by some men who are later revealed to be Fung's henchmen. They force him to participate in a plot to steal "the football". When President Cahill and President Fung are at Taiwan aboard Fung's ship, Fung insists that he feels that peaceful co-existence with mainland China may no longer be possible and that drastic action must be taken to ensure China does not invade Taiwan. Soon afterwards, Fung's henchmen begin killing all the other agents, leaving Mike Connelly as the only loyal Secret Service agent left.
Fung's men, along with Fung's girlfriend Iris, are successful in stealing the football, and Fung forces Cahill to activate it (by knocking him unconscious to get his thumbprint and eye retina scans), explaining that he will use the US's ICBMs to launch a nuclear strike on China, hoping that this will lead a revolution among his people towards "a new beginning" of Taiwanese freedom and pointing out that since he alone controls all of the US's missiles, he would not have to worry about mutually assured destruction of both China and the United States, just the United States when China retaliates.
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Wikipedia