September 18, 1980, 6:25 p.m., Titan II base in Damascus, Arkansas. On this fateful night an explosion kills an Air Force member and transforms the lives of everyone on the base. Honing in on a single case of so-called “human error”, Command and Control juxtaposes precision on a minute scale against the gargantuan risks inherent in the United States’ aggressive nuclear proliferation policy during the Cold War. This high-stakes documentary thriller draws connections between Titan, the Bravo test at Bikini Atoll, and a B-52 crash above Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1961 to show, as First Lieutenant Allan Childers notes in one scene, “When you’re working on a weapon of mass destruction, you’re counting on everything to work perfect all the time — and things just don’t work perfect all the time.”

—Genna Terranova

Directed by

Robert Kenner