Top military scientist Dustin Hoffman sniffs a disaster waiting to happen when he investigates an African village wiped out by a plague virus - and he's right.

We've been here before, though - and seen sinister superiors like Donald Sutherland.

'Do you know how much it costs to send out a special alert? ' he asks Hoffman. 'You know the chances of such a virus turning up in the US are nil.'

Hah! Pretty soon the residents of Cedar Creek, California, are dying in their hundreds and Sutherland, who 'eliminated' an infected African village 28 years before, and developed an antidote he plans to use as a biological weapon, now persuades the President to blast Cedar Creek off the face of the earth.

Hoffman races against time to beat both Sutherland and the virus. 'It's one billionth our size,' he complains, 'and it's beating us.'

The result of all this is a hi-tech, high velocity, if jingoistic thriller into which director Wolfgang Peterson even manages to inject (sorry! ) a dogfight between helicopters.