I have read 'Fail Safe' (the book) by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler about 10 times and seen the Fonda movie about 5 and both were fantastic. I waited with anticipation for the "Clooney version" and counted off the days till it was to be aired ... I put Post-it notes on my mirrors and doors so I wouldn't forget ... and when I finally saw it I wanted to throw up. They played around with the original script and characters and generally screwed the whole thing up ... In my opinion it was a mess. <br /><br />The book was best and I very much encourage you to read it if you liked THE movie (Fonda version). The writing (narrative) in the book is almost like a character.... IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GREAT!!!!!<br /><br />The Fonda version was EXCELLENT and I would recommend it to anyone. But this film still did not do perfect justice to the book which I still think was better.<br /><br />The Clooney version should be taken out and burned. They tried SO hard to copy the Fonda version even to the extent of showing it in black and white like the original. The Clooney version came up WAY short of either the book or the Fonda movie. Americans in our zeal are always trying to improve on things that need NO improvement ... and we generally screw things up when we do. This was a good example of a massive screw up. Keitel and Dreyfuss overacted their parts to the point of silliness. When compared to the cool and professional style of Fonda (The President) and Dan O'Herlihy (Gen. Warren Black) in the 1964 movie they weren't even on the same planet. The subtle acting of most of the characters in the Fonda film actually HEIGHTENED the tension. Dreyfuss was doing everything but somersaults in the bomb shelter apparently not knowing when enough was enough. Though I think Dreyfuss, Keitel and Clooney are superb actors they simply didn't work in this televised live performance ....I couldn't in good conscience recommend this presentation.