The film is an appropriately somber and smoothly told account of the Washington politics and cross-agency obfuscation that nearly derailed the commission's investigation into the disaster.
Hurt is genetically incapable of turning in a substandard performance -- whether in Damages, or name-your-favorite-Hurt-flick, or even in this quiet, intelligent film.
Most of the credit for The Challenger's success belongs to Hurt, who has made a career of bringing slightly damaged, awkwardly distant but morally grounded characters to life. His portrayal of Feynman hits all the right notes.
Credit the Science Channel with figuring out that this story had the kind of smarts and scientific elements at its core to be a great fit and perfect fodder for its foray into scripted material.
The Challenge Disaster suffers somewhat from its attempts to create added dramatic intrigue... The film never offers proof either way, and it's an unnecessary embellishment that too strictly conforms to conspiracy archetypes.
Ultimately, at a time when the cinematic designation "true story" frequently requires a litany of mealy-mouthed disclaimers, that level of fidelity alone would make Challenger Disaster a trip worth taking.
Where a more traditional approach could've easily been bogged down by sentiment, The Challenger Disaster's levelheaded tack allows for a specific understanding of the decisions and shortsightedness that caused the catastrophe.
That it succeeds as well as it does can be credited largely to William Hurt, who manages to make the physicist Richard P. Feynman interesting all over again.
