Documentary Review Downwind

Downwind (2023) 

Directed by Douglas Brian Miller, Mark Shapiro 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Martin Sheen, Patrick Wayne, Michael Douglas 

Release Date January 23rd, 2023 

Published January 27th, 2023 

Downwind is a terrifying title. Being downwind simply is not a place you want to be in most, if not all contexts. That is especially true if you are downwind from sites where the American government was testing nuclear weapons. Between 1951 and 1992 the United States Military tested 928 Nuclear Weapons on a site in Mercury, Nevada. Despite promises of security and safety, those who lived downwind over Mercury, Nevada, to this day, die more frequently from cancer than anywhere in the country. That the community most affected by being downwind from Mercury, Nevada is a community of the Shoshone Indian Tribe only adds another layer of awful to this terrible story of misguided hubris and disregard of basic human decency. 

The documentary Downwind tells the story of the American nuclear project and the various effects testing nuclear weapons on American soil has had on the American people. The dropping of Atomic weapons on Japan in World War 2 touched off an arms race unlike any in the history of the world. Then, when nuclear weapons were developed, a whole new horror was brought to bear on mankind, one that brought the world to the brink of complete extinction. You see, the American government knew all along that the use of Nuclear weapons would lead to dangerous and deadly fallout but pushed forward with nuclear weapons anyway out of fear that Russia would develop the weapon first. 

In order to develop nuclear weapons, the American government needed to test those weapons. Needing a secure place to do the testing, away from the potential for foreign spies finding out about these developments, and not wanting to create fallout near population centers of the United States, the government settled on tiny Mercury, Nevada. Not so much a town, as a ghost town, Mercury was several miles from anywhere people were living. It would, perhaps, be the safest place this type of testing could be done if there were such a thing as safely testing nuclear weapons. 

Naturally, the desire to harness a new, more powerful weapon, overcame good sense and testing moved ahead despite the fact that everyone was aware of the possibility that anyone living 'downwind' of Mercury could be exposed to radiation fallout, a deadly result of the use of nuclear weapons. The reason nuclear weapons could cause mass extinction if ever used isn't because of the thousands of people who would die from a nuclear blast. Rather, the radiation fallout from the use of nuclear weapons on a global scale, such as the scenario of Russia and the United States firing weapons at each other, would poison the planet and hasten a relatively slow and painful end via disease, famine and drought. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media linked here.