The Manhattan Project (1986)

Paul Stephens, a high school student in Ithaca, New York, is generally unmotivated academically despite being a science geek, his interest, as per his age, mostly in those science items that have a wow factor. It is his interest in science that connects him to Dr.

John Mathewson, a scientist recently having relocated to Ithaca and who is interested romantically in Paul's soon to be divorced mother, Elizabeth Stephens. It is in that want to impress Elizabeth through Paul that John invites Paul to Medatomics, a medical research facility, so that he can demonstrate some of those "wow" type experiments on which he and his colleagues are working. While impressed enough, Paul is nonetheless more interested in something else in the facility that John only makes passing reference to when asked, that "green goo" which in combination with other things Paul discovers around the facility making him believe that the facility really a secret government nuclear one, the green goo radioactive material for atomic bombs. Paul and his classmate/girlfriend Jenny Anderman, an aspiring journalist, want to expose Medatomics for what they believe it to be as there was no community notification about operating a potentially dangerous nuclear facility there. While Jenny wants to go the traditional route in writing an exposé, Paul believes there is only one effective way to get their message across to the world while making them both famous. The further Paul, with Jenny's help, gets to enacting his plan to its intended end, the more he may place their lives and that of the community in danger, especially if the authorities discover what he is doing.