The story of Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet officer whose cool-headed actions on 26 September 1983 averted a nuclear catastrophe (warning systems detected an American strike and protocol demanded immediate retaliation) is gripping enough without the need for hokey docudrama interpolation. Danish director Peter Anthony talks enthusiastically of blurring the boundary “between narrative and documentary”, but as we follow Petrov to the US to meet his idol Kevin Costner, it’s not just the casting that recalls the artifice of In Bed With Madonna. Reconstructions of the fateful night in 1983 and of Petrov’s subsequent bereavement and descent into depression add dramatic colour but little insight.
