Geostorm: Who Is Leonard Dekkom And His Evil Plan Explained
If you're reading this, it's too late.
You've already watched the entirety of "Geostorm," likely from the comfort of your own couch on HBO Max. Maybe you just saw "Plane" and "Greenland" and needed to cap off your Gerard Butler thrill-ogy; perhaps you just happened across it while aimlessly scrolling the "Gs," and you knew that if you didn't pick something quick, you'd end up lost in the "Zs;" or maybe you lost a bet. Whatever fate brought "Geostorm" into your life, one thought is almost certain to stir in your mind as the credits roll: "What on Earth did I just watch?"
"Geostorm" is a simple movie, in the sense that it's designed merely to show the audience different landmarks getting destroyed (Dean Devlin truly stretched himself here after writing "Independence Day" and "Godzilla"). That said, "simple" does not equal coherent. After a whirlwind of climate machines, secret codes, and bizarre assassination plots, viewers can't be blamed for being slightly confused — especially in regard to Ed Harris' hand-wringing villain Leonard Dekkom.
To quickly jog your memory, Dekkom was the Secretary of State serving under Andy Garcia's President Andrew Palma. Despite presenting himself as an ally for most of the film — surprise, surprise — he winds up being the mastermind behind the titular Geostorm.
What did Dekkom want, exactly?
To sum it up in a sentence, Dekkom's plan in "Geostorm" was to become the world's de facto leader by way of commandeering Dutch Boy. Though already questionable on paper, Dekkom at the very least had two somewhat clear steps laid out toward his goal. The first, horrifically simple step in his scheme was to use Dutch Boy's manufactured natural disasters to irreparably harm entire nations, setting them back decades and thereby securing a lasting American hegemony. Yes, billions of innocent lives would be lost, important regions would be decimated, vital commercial relationships would be disrupted, and foreign resources would be scarce, but at least Dekkom would get to be king of the world or something.
That is, if he can skip his way to the front of the presidential succession line — which brings us to part two of this baffling plot. See, even though Dekkom has basically hijacked the power of a god and seeks to use it with all the clandestine grace of a wrestler wielding a folding chair, he still feels beholden to the U.S. Consitution — he may be a ruthless murderer, but he's still an American, darn it.
The trouble is, Dekkom is only Secretary of State, putting him fourth in line for the top job. Secretary Antony Blinken may be one of the more obscure members of President Joe Biden's cabinet, but you can bet your star-spangled banner that even he won't see the Oval Office if Patty Murray's still standing (and we definitely knew who she was before googling it). Sure, Dekkom does ultimately just want to kill his way to the position, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through when you've already essentially wrested control of the world's most advanced (and possibly first) improvised weapon of mass destruction.