Corrected entry: In the last few minutes of the film the kid's homemade nuclear implosion bomb is stuck with the timer ticking away toward zero, at which it'll explode and destroy everything within a radius of several miles. Everyone in the lab is frantically trying to figure out how to disarm the bomb without setting it off in the process. In fact, all they have to do is find some crude way to smash the device, ruining the spherical symmetry of the jacket of conventional chemical high explosive surrounding the smaller sphere of fissile plutonium. By destroying the spherical symmetry of the implosion, the nuclear chain reaction will not proceed efficiently. Thus, even if the timer sets off the device, only the comparatively harmless chemical explosive will detonate.
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Correction: The "comparatively harmless chemical explosive" would, at best, spread deadly plutonium around (plutonium is highly toxic even without its radioactivity). It would be just like the "Dirty Bombs" anti-terrorism experts are so concerned about, and might cause as much damage to life and property as a nuclear explosion (albeit in a different way). They would try every other option to defuse the bomb, before they did something as dangerous and irresponsible as destroying it.
J I Cohen