Movies - Outbreak

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	Movies - Outbreak

Outbreak (1995) is a suspense film starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Morgan Freeman. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who has also directed films such as Troy
, The Perfect Storm, and Air Force One
. In addition to Hoffman, Russo, and Freeman, Outbreak features Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Patrick Dempsey.

The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak shows how far the military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread.

The film was released in March of 1995 and went on to become a moderate box office success. The film was nominated for various awards but failed to garner any major award nominations. It also brought on many "what-if" scenarios in media outlets across the nation and world. News outlets began to question what would the government really do if a situation similar to the movie happened in reality and the CDC actually has plans in case an outbreak ever actually does occur.

The film was shot at various locations in California and Hawaii. The locations used in California include Eureka, Ferndale, Los Angeles, and Pasadena. The lone spot used in Hawaii was Kauai, which was used to film some of the scenes that were supposed to be in Africa.

The film was inspired by a rival virus movie, Crisis in the Hot Zone, an adaptation of the book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

Synopsis

A virus similar to Ebola & Lassa is discovered in the African jungles in 1969 and is kept top-secret by those who know about it. Twenty-five years later, it resurfaces in Africa again. Col. Sam Daniels (Hoffman) of the U.S. Army is sent to investigate the Motaba case with his crew. He and his crew contain the virus and return to the United States where he asks his superior, General Ford (Freeman), to put out an alert for the virus. Ford tells Daniels that the virus is unlikely to show up. What neither of the men knows is that the host animal, a monkey, has been brought to the U.S. on a ship to be sold illegally in the pet trade. Jimbo Scott (Dempsey) bribes a guard at the shipping location and takes the monkey to Cedar Creek to sell for breeding. On the trip, the monkey spits into Jimbo's mouth, effectively infecting him.

Once Jimbo arrives at the pet store in Cedar Creek the owner of the store tells him he got the wrong sex but only after the monkey has scratched him, infecting him. Jimbo then takes the monkey and releases him into the woods of California. Jimbo starts to shows signs of infection on his plane trip to Boston where he gets off the plane and kisses his girlfriend, infecting her. They are both hospitalized and Daniels' ex-wife, Robby (Russo), is called in to investigate this infection. While all of this is going on, the owner of the pet store in Cedar Creek begins to show signs of infection as well. Russo investigates and concludes that everbody in Boston checked out all right.

While the techs in the hospital are running tests on the pet store owners blood, a vial breaks and splatters blood on one of them, infecting him. He is the first person infected with an airborne strain of the virus. Later on, he goes to a packed movie theatre and coughs, expels, and exposes hundreds of citizens to the virus and this starts the massive Cedar Creek outbreak. Col. Daniels learns of the infection and wants to be sent there but is being sent to New Mexico. He changes his orders and sends himself and his crew to Cedar Creek where he finds Robby is already working on the problem. They work on isolating the town, especially the sick, and finding out where the virus came from. They find out about the pet store owner and believe that a host animal at the store may be carrying antibodies. They search the store and find a monkey but the monkey is already sick but they contain it and examine it. It is also apparent that a state of martial law has been declared in Cedar Creek as the army controls everything from rounding up the sick to setting a curfew.

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