Free Republic

Cillian Murphy stars as the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” in a stacked ensemble that includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. and Florence Pugh. Cillian Murphy in 'Oppenheimer' UNIVERSAL PICTURES Both a probing character study and a sweeping account of history, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a brainy, brawny thriller about the man who led the Manhattan Project to build the bomb that ended World War II. To dispense with the inevitable weapon of mass destruction metaphors, it’s more slow-burn than explosive. But perhaps the most surprising element of this audacious epic is that the scramble for atomic armament...

The famous physicist managed a Manhattan Project teeming with Soviet spies.J. Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” has long been a darling of the left, and not because he oversaw the creation of the most devastating weapon ever used. No, for them Oppenheimer is the tortured conscience of the Cold War and the martyred saint of McCarthyism. Kai Bird, co-author of the excellent biography on which Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” is based, has penned a column in The New York Times lamenting the tragic life of the physicist, who lost security clearance in 1953. Oppenheimer was, writes Bird,...