US Army research physician Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) has been dispatched by General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman), his commanding officer at USAMRIID (US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases), to investigate an outbreak of a virulent new virus in Zaire, Central Africa (the scenes were actually filmed in Hawaii).
Deep within the dense tropical rainforest there, Sam discovers a village which has been obliterated by a horrific virus with a nearly 100% fatality rate. The population are all now dying or already lie dead and stacked like firewood.
Sam concludes that the killer virus – called Motaba and ranked one level more dangerous than anthrax, typhus and HIV – is capable of spreading to the United States – if it hasn’t already – and warns his superior officers to place the country on alert.
He also advises his estranged ex-wife, Dr Roberta “Robby” Keough (Rene Russo), who is currently working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of his urgent findings.
In one scientist’s words, the virus “liquefies” the organs and leaves its victims looking as if a bomb went off inside them.
Without explanation, however, Sam is taken off the investigation by General Ford, and Robby’s supervisors at the CDC refuse to heed the warnings.
Robby and Sam await the worst. But as time passes and no reports of contagion are received, the medical emergency that could have decimated the country seems, luckily, to have passed.
Until reports begin flowing into the agencies that people in the small town of Cedar Creek, California, are contracting flu-like symptoms, becoming progressively ill and dying within hours of being infected – in the same agonising way as the victims in Africa.
The worst has come true: Safely contained within the depths of the African rainforest for years, the lethal virus has somehow found its way to this small community in America. And it must be stopped.
Despite their personal differences, Robby and Sam agree to work together to try to contain the deadly disease before it spreads beyond the small community of Cedar Creek.
They are in a race against time to find the key to stop the virus before it radiates beyond the small town and wipes out hundreds of thousands.
Their race to find an antiviral serum is further threatened by one of the nation’s highest-ranking military officers, General McClintock (Donald Sutherland), who has vowed not to let the virus – or its secret (military) history – out of Cedar Creek at any cost and is poised to unleash a plan that will contain the virus in a manner as uncompromisingly lethal as the outbreak itself.
Outbreak is rich with the kind of dialogue no disaster movie should be without, like “Dr Daniels, there’s something I think you should see” and “Sam, why don’t you try to get a little sleep?”
But it matters little how corny the lines sound because the characters who speak them take a distant second place to the action anyway – helicopter chases and the desperate search for a chattering little monkey who may or may not be the carrier of the virus.
Colonel Sam Daniels MD
Dustin Hoffman Dr Roberta “Robby” Keough
Rene Russo General Billy Ford
Morgan Freeman Casey Schuler
Kevin Spacey Major Salt
Cuba Gooding Jr. General Donald McClintock
Donald Sutherland Jimbo Scott
Patrick Dempsey Dr Benjamin Iwabi
Zakes Mokae Dr Raswani
Malick Bowens Dr Lisa Aronson
Susan Lee Hoffman Dr Julio Ruiz
Benito Martinez Dr Mascelli
Bruce Jarchow Henry Seward
Leland Hayward III Rudy Alvarez
Daniel Chodos Colonel Briggs
Dale Dye Kate Jeffries
Kara Keough Mrs Jeffries
Gina Menza Mr Jeffries
Per Didrik Fasmer Sherry Mauldin
Michelle Joyner Mack Mauldin
Donald Forrest Erica Mauldin
Julie Pierce Tommy Hull
Tim Ransom Darla Hull
Michelle M. Miller Sandman One
Maury Sterling Sandman One Co-Pilot
Michael Emanuel Viper One Pilot
Lucas Dudley Viper Two Pilot
Robert Alan Joseph Viper Two Co-Pilot
Joseph Latimore Sergeant Wolf
Matthew Saks Mrs Pananides
Diana Bellamy Seaman Chulso Lee
Johnny Kim Alice
Kellie Overbey Corinne
Dana Andersen Mrs Foote
Patricia Place Tracy
Jenna Byrne Tracy’s Father
Brian Reddy Mrs Logan
Ina Romeo Nurse Emma
Teresa Velarde Nurse Jane
Jane Jenkins Mayor Gaddis
Kurt Boesen Police Chief Fowler
Jack Rader George Armistead
Robert Alan Beuth Janet Adams
Julie Araskog Senator Rosales
Frank Rositani Jaffe
Bruce Isacson Sergeant Meyer
Philip Handy Dr Drew Reynolds
Jim Antonio
Director
Wolfgang Petersen
Video
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Deep within the dense tropical rainforest there, Sam discovers a village which has been obliterated by a horrific virus with a nearly 100% fatality rate. The population are all now dying or already lie dead and stacked like firewood.
Robby and Sam await the worst. But as time passes and no reports of contagion are received, the medical emergency that could have decimated the country seems, luckily, to have passed.
Their race to find an antiviral serum is further threatened by one of the nation’s highest-ranking military officers, General McClintock (Donald Sutherland), who has vowed not to let the virus – or its secret (military) history – out of Cedar Creek at any cost and is poised to unleash a plan that will contain the virus in a manner as uncompromisingly lethal as the outbreak itself.
