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Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 17
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 8

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 2

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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 3,263

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Movie Info

"Fat Man" and "Little Boy" were the nicknames given the atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the waning days of World War II. This elaborately assembled film is the story of the events leading up to the dawn of the atomic age. Paul Newman plays General Leslie Groves, a hard-nosed career soldier who in 1942 finds himself the reluctant "nursemaid" to a group of idealistic scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico. As the military head of the top-secret Manhattan Project, Groves

PG-13, 2 hr. 10 min.

Drama

Directed By: Roland Joff�

Written By: Bruce Robinson, Roland Joff�

In Theaters: Oct 20, 1989 Wide

On DVD: Apr 27, 2004

Paramount Home Video

Fat Man and Little Boy Trailer & Photos

Cast

Paul Newman
Gen. Leslie R. Groves
Dwight Schultz
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Bonnie Bedelia
Kitty Oppenheimer
John Cusack
Michael Merriman
Laura Dern
Kathleen Robinson
Natasha Richardson
Jean Tatlock
John C. McGinley
Richard Schoenfield
Ron Vawter
Jamie Latrobe
Michael Brockman
William "Deke" Parsons
Del Close
Dr. Kenneth Whiteside
John Considine
Robert Tuckson
Alan Corduner
Franz Goethe
Jon De Vries
Johnny Mount
James Eckhouse
Norbert Harper
Walter Edmiston
Matthew Faison
Todd Field
Robert Wilson
Mary Pat Gleason
Dora Welsh
Clark Gregg
Douglas Panton
Gerald Hiken
Leo Szilard
Ed Lauter
Whitney Ashbridge
Madison Mason
Boris Pash
Alan Oppenheimer
Logan Ramsey
Gen. Brehon Somervell
Ken Strausbaugh
Observation Officer
Fred Dalton Thompson
Melrose Hayden Barry
Jim True
Donald Hornig
Ronald C. Frazier
Peer de Silva
Robert Peter Gale
Dr. Louis Hempelmann
Don Pugsley
Bronson
Marek Alboszta
Scientist
Steven Baigelman
Dr. Avenell
Frank Benettieri Jr.
Messenger
David Brainard
Samuel Allison
Roger Cubicciotti
Frank Oppenheimer
Franco Cutietta
Enrico Fermi
Peter Halasz
George Kistiakowsky
Brent Harrison
Peter Oppenheimer
Wesley Harrison
Peter Oppenheimer
Arthur Holden
Oakridge Doctor
Donald Mackechnie
James Tuck
Tom McFarlane
Scientist
David C. Parnes
Raincoat Man
Christopher Pieczynski
Otto Frisch
Allen Poirson
Howard McDonald
David Politzer
Robert Serber
Bill Rubenstein
Times Reporter
Walter Sullivan
Henry Stimson
Brian Wandell
Dennis Talmudge
Barry Yourgrau
Edward Teller
Nancy Foy
John Williams
Mack Stoddard
Stan Jones

Critic Reviews for Fat Man and Little Boy

All Critics (21) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (8) | DVD (5)

A singular, powerful experience.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post

| Comment

Hal Hinson

Washington Post

Top Critic

[Fat Man] is not resoundingly disastrous. That would imply a certain energy.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post

| Comment

Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

Fat Man and Little Boy is a fiction based on the Manhattan Project, but it is thin and unfocused and hardly even suggests the enormous moral and practical questions that the scientists wrestled with in the New Mexico desert.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times

| Comment

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

Disappointing biopic about A-bomb creation

November 7, 2003 Comment

Jon Niccum

Lawrence Journal-World

Serious film about the ethics of the men who ushered America into the nuclear age.

July 15, 2003 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice

| Comment

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Spirituality and Practice

An interesting historical drama, but lacks the personal touch.

December 25, 2002 Comment

Bob Bloom

Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

Intersting, insightful histo-drama with Newman doing his job above and beyond what is called for.

August 1, 2002 Comment

Michael Clawson

West Valley View Source: West Valley View

A bit clinical, but also quite enlightening.

July 26, 2002 Comment

Scott Weinberg

eFilmCritic.com

It's just too distanced to allow us to get involved.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City

| Comment

Chris Hicks

Deseret News, Salt Lake City

The movie might actually have been good if it had been done with a little more pinnace.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com

| Comment

James Brundage

Filmcritic.com

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Fat Man and Little Boy

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Its an amateurish disaster.There is no focus and any serious moral posturing that could have been put worth is ruined by oversimplifying the questions and the answers.

June 27, 2011

Alec Barniskis

Super Reviewer

As a medical professional, the second half of this movie was really interesting to me. Two of the scientists who worked on this bomb unwittingly became the first cases of acute radiation sickness. Little was known about radiation poisoning before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

January 16, 2008

Ida Kern

Super Reviewer

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