I love this movie so much

Let's be realistic.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There are actually a lot of things to like of this movie, but unfortunately the writers didn't know where to stop. The result is a mash of sub-plots that do nothing to advance the core plot of the movie. Whether or not that core is enough to keep the movie afloat is hard to say, but there's some fine moments from both Martin Landau and James Earl Jones, offset only to a degree by Darren McGavin's hammy performance.To be honest, I think the entire bomber subplot could be removed without effecting the outcome much. Especially at the end, it seems the writers just kept adding new events to that plot line without any obvious need or plan. Reduced to its core there's maybe 1 hour of movie here, and that might have worked on its own. But as a two hour movie I think it fails.

This movie's only missing two elements; good acting and good writing. It obviously had a liberal budget for a made-for-TV feature but it serves as an excellent illustration of the difference that those two missing elements really make in a movie.For a good lesson watch this thing and then, the same evening, watch "Fail Safe" with Henry Fonda, a movie with a tiny budget but enormous acting and writing talents. The difference between the two will be breathtaking, even to a novice.The shame of Dawn is that it actually featured some fine actors such as James Earl Jones (whose presence is limited to reciting some 11th grade dialog) and Martin Landau (whose character is unconscious for much of the film).

The title of this junk drama should give notice that it's nothing more than a trite phrase turned into more Hollywood preaching.This looks like a script written in the 50s or 60s and updated to fit 1990. Or maybe just a script by one enamored with the nuclear Armageddon films of the 60s. It's still an anachronism. Director Jack Sholder has credentials when it comes to making good action films, and he does well here in the last 15-30 minutes, but it's hard to overcome the outlandish implausible plot elements that really end up sinking this.They are: Nobody of significant importance in Washington was protected in any way, even when it was knowledge several minutes ahead that a blast would hit the DC area. That's bull because there are plans in place since the 50s to do such on a moment's notice.The Sec of the Interior, chosen by the President and vetted by Congress, acts like a member of a political fringe group, and takes the advice of a nut-job Colonel over that of Admirals and Generals. Hardly even close to realistic.The military members of a bomber plane behave like they've never been in the service at all, each one following personal ideation rather than following orders. This one is particularly junk fiction, and would have not gone down as shown here, but of course it makes for melodrama.And then there's the usual Hollywood claptrap about every single person who is politically right of Hollywood being shown as a raving loony, eventually.But one thing, it's always fun to watch Rebecca De Morney get angry or in distress because when she does, she looks just like her Dad, Wally George, when he was shouting about stuff on his right-wing TV show. I'm sure she'd like the comparison, NOT!

As a former nuclear submariner, I'm frequently annoyed when the producers of military movies just make stuff up in the name of dramatic expediency. I can also overcome this annoyance when the dramatic aspect of the film is worth expediting. Shoving in authentic military lingo can get in the way on occasion. This film was poorly researched, poorly acted, poorly written and poorly directed. It was a pure bruckheimer-esquire hack job whose only redeeming quality is its short running time. Everyone associated with this film should be ashamed. Their families should be ashamed. I can't believe this film got a higher rating than 'The Day After'. At least 'The Day After' was well researched, even if the acting was spotty.How you can take a dramatic theme like an ongoing nuclear standoff, great actors like James Earl Jones and still end up with a giant piece of garbage so lame that calling it hackneyed melodramatic drivel is far too generous a complement. If I ever meet Mr. Sholder, the director of this film, I will simply turn away and mutter to my doting family 'that man is dead to me.'