The year is 2008 and President Walter Emerson (Kevin Pollak) is stranded in a Colorado diner in the middle of a blizzard. Suddenly, news arrives that Iraq has invaded Kuwait, and threatens the rest of the Middle East with chemical and biological weapons. With most of the U.S. armed forces stuck in a tense military stand-off in Korea, the President decides he has only one option: he announces on television that he will launch a nuclear attack on Baghdad unless Iraq backs down. While the President's advisors try to figure out a diplomatic solution, the situation in the diner gets increasingly tense, and the global crisis escalates until global nuclear war is threatened. DETERRENCE is a tense military thriller with several unique twists and turns and an intelligent plot guaranteed to provoke debate. Director and former film critic Rod Lurie makes good use of a low budget thanks to imaginative direction and strong performances from the cast, including Timothy Hutton and Sheryl Lee Ralph as the President's advisors. While most thrillers are content to provide excitement, DETERRENCE combines tense political thrills with a subtle but strong position on global nuclear weapons.