• Home
  • News
  • Top Picks
    • Movies & Films: Top 25
    • Documentaries: Top 25
    • Films For Students: Top 10
    • Music Videos: Top 10
  • Categories
    • Film
    • Documentary
    • Shorts
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Links
    • About

Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

Libertarian Movies, Films & Documentaries

Nightbreaker (1989)

Tagged: Abuse of power, Working for government

A doctor assigned to monitor Army tests of nuclear battlefield conditions learns that soldiers are being deliberately exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. [ Nightbreaker credits: Dir: Peter Markle/ Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Lea Thompson/ 99 min/ Drama/ Abuse of Power, Working for Government]

“An example of the ultimately proprietary if not predatory attitude government often takes towards its citizens.”

In the late 1980s, journalistic and congressional investigators revealed that the U.S. government had conducted a variety of secret experiments on Americans to test the effects of radiation. According to official records, subjects usually gave their ostensible consent, but the situations in which they gave consent and the information they were given about the risks often do not bear scrutiny. In some cases, subjects had no idea at all what was going on. Nightbreaker does a good job of dramatizing these experiments and in so doing provides an example of the ultimately proprietary if not predatory attitude government often takes towards its citizens.

Most of the story takes place in the 1950s, at a nuclear test site in Nevada. The main character is a young doctor who has been hired to help with secret nuclear tests using soldiers as subjects. At first, he’s just a naive observer, trusting of the government and determined to carry out proposed tests as ordered. But in the course of participating in them, he gradually realizes that the soldiers involved are unwittingly being used as guinea pigs and are being exposed to increasingly high levels of radiation. Angered and embittered by this revelation, he finally quits the program. Flash forward thirty years: The same doctor is approached by a group of sick veterans who now are suffering from radiation-related illnesses, but who can’t get the government to admit what it did to them. He’s the only one left who knows the truth. Will he tell or won’t he? That’s the principle source of drama here. The story is slightly diluted by a tepid love interest, but otherwise it concentrates on the subject at hand.

Nightbreaker ends with some actual footage of soldiers being deliberately exposed to a nearby nuclear blast, followed by a notation that “between 1945 and 1962 over two hundred and thirty five thousand American servicemen and women were involved in above-ground atomic tests.” Also listed as Advance to Ground Zero.

How to See It

Online Video Search

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: Rage

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

  • RSS
  • Twitter

Featured Post

badass beauty queen

Badass Beauty Queen | Documentary

Anastasia Lin wins the annual Miss World Canada beauty contest and uses her newfound notoriety to campaign against human rights abuses in communist China. [ Badass Beauty Queen credits: Dir: Theresa Kowall-Shipp/ Anastasia Lin/ 100 min/ Documentary/ Libertarian Heroes, Anti-Socialism/ Country/ … Continue Reading

Snowflake

Snowflake: Bud Sugar Song Mocks Social Justice Crybullies

Snowflake is a great new song from the band Bud Sugar. It mocks social justice crybullies in a lighthearted way and to a catchy beat. This is just great fun. Some links for the band: YouTube  Instagram  Facebook  Twitter  Patreon  Homepage … Continue Reading

A Pity You’ve Never Seen An Old Movie: 10 Suggested Films

Per the New York Post, "A new study finds that less than a quarter of millennials have watched an old movie from start to finish that was made back in the 1940s or 50s and only a third have seen one from the 1960s." This is something of a cultural tragedy, as so much of what is great in the larger body of … Continue Reading

Themes

Abuse of power American revolution Anti-draft Anti-regulation Anti-slavery Anti-socialism Anti-taxation Anti-war Ayn Rand Corrupt government Creator as hero Democide Econ 101 Eminent domain Equality & law Escape from socialism Freedom of speech Free press as hero Government as bigot Government as torturer Government enforced morality Government healthcare Government schools Incompetent government Individualism John Stossel Law & liberty Legalize Drugs Libertarian heroes Libertarianism 101 Power corrupts Power worship Pro-capitalism Pro-immigration Propaganda Psychiatric coercion Resistance to tyranny Right to secede Search & seizure Second amendment Sexual liberty Social tolerance Unions & monopolies Voluntarism Working for government

Genres/Categories

Action-Adventure Animated Biography Blog Comedy Documentary Drama Family Featured Film Foreign History Horror Music-Dance Netflix News Romance SciFi-Fantasy Shorts Thriller Upcoming Western

About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

  • RSS

© 2022 Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World. All Rights Reserved

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.