The China Syndrome
A news reporter and her cameraman are unintentional witnesses to a SCRAM incident, an emergency core shutdown procedure at a nuclear power plant in California. Something is terribly wrong at the plant, but its owners are more interested in finances and public relations, and cover the entire matter up.
2 January 1952, Tyrone, Pennsylvania, USA
27 April 1949, California, USA
October 19, 1924 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA
27 March 1923, Covington, Tennessee, USA
31 July 1951, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
8 February 1925, Newton, Massachusetts, USA
13 May 1947, Schenectady, New York, USA
December 11, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA
6 October 1942, Spokane, Washington, USA
20 January 1928, Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada
9 November 1930, Van Nuys, California, USA
15 August 1934, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
27 September 1934, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
March 27, 2009
Not a comforting film, but an undeniably potent one.March 26, 2009
A moderately compelling thriller about the potential perils of nuclear energy, whose major fault is an overweening sense of its own self-importance.May 05, 2014
Scary, absorbing thriller predicts risks of nuclear power.January 30, 2009
It's an exciting and worthwhile old-fashioned thriller about the dangers of a nuclear power accident.March 25, 2011
What we must quarrel with is the heartless, devious, and appallingly manipulative manner in which the authors of the film have drawn their good-guys-and-bad-guys battlelines ...March 27, 2009
A tightly assembled didactic thriller.June 24, 2006
All a bit too earnest, despite the seriousness of the subject, with Fonda setting her jaw and stepping into father's footsteps as Tinseltown's very own protector of humanity; but it's tightly scripted and directed, and genuinely tense in places.March 27, 2009
The film is one of those rare modern thrillers that manages to combine fantastic acting and intelligent dialogue with real, heart-stopping suspense.March 25, 2006
Crackling drama about TV reporter (Jane Fonda) investigating a coverup at a faulty nuclear reactor, and pressing upon conflicted technician played by the first-rate Jack Lemmon to go public with the story.May 20, 2003
The three stars are splendid, but maybe Miss Fonda is just a bit more than that. Her performance is not that of an actress in a star's role, but that of an actress creating a character that happens to be major within the film.April 09, 2007
File this one under 'Hasn't Aged Well.'October 23, 2004
A terrific thriller that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are.