Former President and conservative icon Ronald Reagan is having a mini-moment at the multiplex. But this is less a sign of his worthiness as a box-office draw than of niche distributors realizing that catering to a small but receptive (and politically conservative) segment of the moviegoing public can yield decent returns, even if the films themselves are far from decent. In 2024, Dennis Quaid smiled and suffered as our 40th president in the glossy, 141-minute hagiography Reagan. The Brink of War, the latest release from Angel Studios, tackles the Gipper’s presidency from a more promising angle. Its sole interest is the October 1986 nuclear arms-control summit between Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev that unfolded over 30 tense hours at an isolated waterfront house in Reykjavík, Iceland. The summit, even though it ended without an agreement, was still considered a watershed moment in Cold War diplomacy, in part because it brought both leaders surprisingly close to agreeing to eliminate their countries’ nuclear weapons.
The film’s more focused approach mirrors that of similar, albeit better, dramas like Lincoln and Frost/Nixon that delve into a single pivotal moment in history. In crafting his densely packed script, writer-director Michael Russell Gunn has certainly done his homework, and he constantly insists on proving it to us. The movie plays less like a sweat-inducing series of high-stakes exchanges and more like an engrossing, detail-clogged history lesson littered with famous quotes that make everyone, especially Reagan, sound awfully wise. Admittedly, the amount of Reagan legacy-burnishing here is not outrageously flagrant, and Gorbachev gets plenty of rhetorical licks in. Even if the whole thing feels like yesterday’s news in a world drowning in all kinds of 21st-century shenanigans, The Brink of War serves as an effective primer for those unfamiliar with the dark days when the U.S. and the Soviet Union had, according to the film’s opening graphic, 70,000 nuclear missiles aimed at each other.
Since the film is ultimately a two-hander, its lead performances had better be rock-solid—and they are. Portraying Reagan is tricky, since his signature head bob and frequent use of the folksy filler word “well…” make it easy for any actor to slip into caricature. Jeff Daniels occasionally falls into this trap in an otherwise fine turn in which Reagan’s aw-shucks demeanor hides a steeliness that makes him dangerous for Gorbachev to underestimate.
At the other end of the literal and ideological table is Gorbachev, played by a riveting Jared Harris in yet another reminder that he is one of our most underappreciated and underutilized actors. As any great performer would, Harris plays Gorbachev not as a villain but as a sly, passionate, and articulate defender of his country’s political system. Credit to Gunn for making him quite the match for Reagan, who arrives in Reykjavík with Secretary of State George Shultz (J.K. Simmons, terrific as usual). Reagan isn’t sure he can trust Gorbachev, but he’s determined to hammer out an arms agreement. He’s also adamant about protecting his beloved Strategic Defense Initiative (the missile defense system nicknamed “Star Wars”), which Gorbachev steadfastly opposes, eventually leading to an impasse that produces the film’s tensest moment.
The Brink of War is at its best when letting two great actors go mano a mano around a simple wooden table in service of a true story with world-ending implications. Gorbachev shocks both Reagan and Shultz when he suggests an actual reduction in arms — not just arms control — which would be historic and would also ease Reagan’s fear of being labeled a warmonger back home. As for Reagan, he repeatedly antagonizes Gorbachev by bringing up the Soviet Union’s pathetic human-rights record, here represented by the U.S. president’s request to allow the Soviet sister of famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to come to the States for her brother’s 60th birthday.
Gunn, helped by DP Magdalena Górka’s yellowed interiors and hampered by Austin Wintory’s pushy score, inserts himself into the action with some aspect-ratio trickery, and at one point he even reduces the physical size of the negotiating table as Reagan and Gorbachev inch closer to an agreement. His script is also gussied up with historical Easter eggs, including plenty of now-famous quotes — even if they weren’t actually uttered at the summit — and a nod to Nancy Reagan’s love of astrology. It often comes off as a bit too clever, and not even necessary, considering the acting power on display and the numerous juicy exchanges between two world leaders who are convinced of the righteousness of their diametrically opposed political ideologies, yet who both want peace. Equally unnecessary are Gunn’s attempts to open up the action to include two journalists (naturally, it’s the NPR reporter who complains about Reykjavík’s lack of accommodations). Shut out of the main event, they’re reduced to covering the activities of Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa (Branka Katić).
But someone call Ryan Murphy because the drama surrounding Raisa and Nancy (Hope Davis) could warrant its own miniseries. Here, the supportive Raisa accompanies her husband to Iceland while Nancy stays in Washington, D.C. This allows the Soviet first lady to soak up the media attention with trips to local sites while Nancy struggles Stateside to explain her absence and turn the spotlight away from her counterpart. The pair also allow their respective husbands to articulate their concerns, a wasted opportunity for Reagan, who mostly complains about the animal heads mounted on the wall of his bedroom.
The Brink of War was shot at the actual house where the summit took place, giving the film a rich and authentic sense of history, and Gunn’s script benefits from his conversations with Shultz prior to the Secretary of State’s death in 2021. The result is a livable trade-off: the conscious, if modest, inflating of Reagan’s legacy in exchange for a well-acted, real-life drama with a meaty script that doesn’t feel dumbed down for the uninitiated. One can rightfully complain about other aspects of Reagan’s presidency, but The Brink of War reminds us that the Reykjavík Summit, while considered a failure at the time, was actually one of his major successes.
- Release Date
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August 14, 2026
- Runtime
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117 Minutes
- Director
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Michael Russell Gunn
- Writers
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Michael Russell Gunn
- Producers
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John Logan Pierson, Michael Russell Gunn, Matt Aragachi, Chris Hammond, Tyler Zacharia
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