Ignition (2002) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The military is going to assassinate a liberal president because of ten consecutive years of Pentagon budget cuts.

Yeah, that'll help their cause.

Sigh. These screenwriters always seem to forget an essential point of American politics - if you kill a President for being too far left or right, you get a vice-president who is more extreme in that direction. Since Americans are loath to elect ideologues to the big chair, Presidents are almost always centrists who have to choose a more extreme V.P. to please the hard-line ideologues in their parties. If right-wing nuts had killed pragmatic, slightly left of center Bill Clinton, they would have been stuck with tree-hugging Al Gore. If left-wing nuts killed pragmatic, slightly right of center George W. Bush, they'd be stuck with uberhawk Dick Cheney.

Be that as it may, Olin and Pullman are stuck in the middle of the case as a federal judge who needs protection and the federal marshal who is assigned to protect her. Pullman's role was obviously created for a "Bruce Willis type". He's a cocky, squinty-eyed loner who disrespects his superiors when they are corrupt, and is dismissed from the military despite years of heroic service. He's just as quick to battle evil with his fists as with a wisecrack, blah blah yadda yadda yippie ky yay mofo.

This takes place in an indeterminate time when moon launches will again be made, except this time from a run-down air force base instead of from Cape Kennedy.

Olin is down there handcuffed to something, with a bomb ticking away. Pullman has to rescue her. In doing so, he'll also save the President, because the rocket fire will set off an explosion of nuclear proportions when the flames hit the bomb, and the Prez is standing nearby.  I know what you're thinking. If the rocket ignition is going to set off the bomb, why does the bomb need a timer? I guess it is because all movie bombs are required to have a digital read-out.

The funniest bit is when Olin and Pullman climb out from beneath the rocket with the countdown at ten seconds, rest to catch their breath while fumes are spewing from the payload, then decide to run away from the launch pad. Their crafty "running away" strategy is flawless. The rocket heads off to the moon safely. Pullman and Olin are safe because - well, because they fall to the ground. This follows another basic movie rule. Irrespective of the size of the explosion, good guys can always escape injury from a nearby explosion by falling to the ground. If Bruce Willis had been in Hiroshima, running toward a camera, with Ground Zero just over his shoulder, he would have simply fallen to the ground and thus lived to get the girl, after casually brushing the nuclear debris from his macho aviator jacket.