Frederick Wiseman is one of the great chroniclers of American life; in cinema verité documentaries including Titicut Follies, High School, Law and Order, and Welfare, he has explored Americans within the institutions that circumscribe their lives and do much to determine their behavior. In Missile, he looks at the men and women who have their fingers on the bomb, members of the Strategic Air Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This Strategic Air Command is not a setting for Hollywood-type heroics; rather, we witness the dull day-to-day routines and listen in on the conversations of the quite unremarkable recruits and officers who are trained to arm, target and launch nuclear warheads. One might imagine such a job would make philosophers out of farmers' sons, but the institution does its work thoroughly. Protected by their mandate-to follow orders, unquestioningly-their complacency is chilling.