Outbreak (1995)

directed by: Wolfgang Petersen
written by: Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool
photographed by: Michael Ballhaus
music by: James Newton Howard
edited by: William Hoy, Lynzee Klingman, Stephen E. Rivkin and Neil Travis
stars: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman
imdb

If Contagion had not been made in 2011, Outbreak maybe would have been the movie of the pandemic. But although Outbreak shares with Contagion a multi-star cast (the cast also includes Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Patrick Dempsey) and the plot starts with a deadly virus, that is probably all both movies have in common. If Contagion is essentially a drama, Outbreak is clearly a thriller.

Wolfang Petersen is a very competent director, responsible for Das Boot (1981), The NeverEnding Story (1984) or In The Line of Fire (1993) (although also of the terrible Air Force One, from 1997), but in opposition to Soderbergh (director of Contagion), Petersen is an artisan, so don't expect anything out of the ordinary of Hollywood catastrophe movie.

The virus in Outbreak is the fictional Motaba, which is clearly inspired by Ebola. With a 100% mortality, it is a completely different scenario from our current pandemic. It is clear very soon that Outbreak doesn't try to be a plausible portrait of how a virus outbreak would look like, having even a helicopter chase near the end.

It is also interesting to see the differences between Outbreak and Contagion, how a similar starting point (an animal getting a deadly virus in some forest) can develop in completely different outcomes, with Outbreak adding traditional bad guys, in the shape of corrupt military, to the virus spread.

In the end, Outbreak remains a perfect movie for a Saturday afternoon.

An interesting curiosity to add is that the institution where Dustin Hoffman works, Fort Detrick is "a United States Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, it has hosted most elements of the United States biological defense program" [Wikipedia], facility that is presented in the beginning of the movie. Fort Detrick has been identified by some conspiracy theories as the source of Covid-19, as it 'Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at [Fort Detrick] Over Safety Concerns' in August 2019 [New York Times].