A lot of reviewers seemed to despise this inexpensive but thoughtful movie. The fons et origo of their hatred (because that's what it is) is the spouting of anti-government notions by the three or four terrorists to which the movie introduces us. It's probably a good idea to keep in mind that the description of events on the screen doesn't mean that the writers or the director endorses those events. Otherwise the guys who write and direct stupid slasher movies are all in a world of difficulty.
It's also probably the case that the calumny heaped upon the execution of the film -- "boring," "too long," "no action", "leftist propaganda", and so on -- stems from the reviewers' dislike of the fact that the terrorists are given an extensive hearing without any too-obvious condemnation of what they're saying.
Not that it's a perfect movie by any means. The four terrorists -- well, three, really, since one of them is an FBI infiltrator or something -- are John Shea, Henry Simmons, and Juliet Marquis, and they all do the jobs of seasoned professionals. Shea is the intellectual of the group, the guy who provides the justification for building the bomb. Simmons is an embittered and impotent Gulf War veteran. Juliet Marquis, who is beautiful without being in the least Hollywood-pretty, is the sexual glue that hold the others together. Michael Mosely is the innocent, wide-eyed, somewhat skeptical young man who is recruited by accident into the group and becomes an informant.
Shea's reasoning never really makes much sense. He sees evidence of a conspiracy by the Project For a New American Century everywhere, helped by those at the top who would destroy our liberties, our way of life. He argues that the choice of 9/11, for instance, as the day of attacks was not random. The hijackers knew that there would be an Air Force drill that day that would confuse radar operators and air controllers with lots of false positives. How did they know? Somebody in the Pentagon must have told them, using Osama bin Laden as the conduit.
You know, if you throw a handful of pebbles on the floor they will scatter and form a random pattern. But if you look closely enough, and if your desire to find a pattern is strong enough, you can connect the dots and find an elephant parade or whatever it is you're searching for. What you're looking for depends on your beliefs about the world you live in. That's why the Chinese zodiac is different from ours, although both zodiacs are socially constructed from random arrays.
The three wing nuts we see in this movie aren't stupid by any means. Shea is a successful historian and author. It's just that the pattern he builds out of random events don't jibe with the pattern the rest of us see. However, he's articulate in explaining why he thinks the way he does, and that must be what's irritating some of the other reviewers. They'd likely prefer Shea to be a gibbering maniac of the sort we see in so many childish action films. A joke instead of a human being.
I wish, though, that the damned movie had been built in a more linear way instead of jumping back and forth in time so often. It's all talk and it gets confusing after a while. And the motives behind the planned bombing aren't made at all clear. The motives behind the individuals involved are either formulaic (the black guy who is impotent) or unexplained (Shea's intellectualism). And I'm not sure why, in the last shot, the informer drops the pistol's hammer on an empty chamber while aiming at his boss's forehead.
In the end, I don't like having my nose rubbed in obvious propaganda either. That's why I don't generally like Costa-Gavras's work. But if this film is propaganda, I don't know which point of view is being peddled. Certainly not the domestic terrorists. For all their devotion and self-righteousness, I never felt for a moment that the writer/director was rooting for them to actually do it and get away with it, nor that he was urging the audience to root for them.
It's also probably the case that the calumny heaped upon the execution of the film -- "boring," "too long," "no action", "leftist propaganda", and so on -- stems from the reviewers' dislike of the fact that the terrorists are given an extensive hearing without any too-obvious condemnation of what they're saying.
Not that it's a perfect movie by any means. The four terrorists -- well, three, really, since one of them is an FBI infiltrator or something -- are John Shea, Henry Simmons, and Juliet Marquis, and they all do the jobs of seasoned professionals. Shea is the intellectual of the group, the guy who provides the justification for building the bomb. Simmons is an embittered and impotent Gulf War veteran. Juliet Marquis, who is beautiful without being in the least Hollywood-pretty, is the sexual glue that hold the others together. Michael Mosely is the innocent, wide-eyed, somewhat skeptical young man who is recruited by accident into the group and becomes an informant.
Shea's reasoning never really makes much sense. He sees evidence of a conspiracy by the Project For a New American Century everywhere, helped by those at the top who would destroy our liberties, our way of life. He argues that the choice of 9/11, for instance, as the day of attacks was not random. The hijackers knew that there would be an Air Force drill that day that would confuse radar operators and air controllers with lots of false positives. How did they know? Somebody in the Pentagon must have told them, using Osama bin Laden as the conduit.
You know, if you throw a handful of pebbles on the floor they will scatter and form a random pattern. But if you look closely enough, and if your desire to find a pattern is strong enough, you can connect the dots and find an elephant parade or whatever it is you're searching for. What you're looking for depends on your beliefs about the world you live in. That's why the Chinese zodiac is different from ours, although both zodiacs are socially constructed from random arrays.
The three wing nuts we see in this movie aren't stupid by any means. Shea is a successful historian and author. It's just that the pattern he builds out of random events don't jibe with the pattern the rest of us see. However, he's articulate in explaining why he thinks the way he does, and that must be what's irritating some of the other reviewers. They'd likely prefer Shea to be a gibbering maniac of the sort we see in so many childish action films. A joke instead of a human being.
I wish, though, that the damned movie had been built in a more linear way instead of jumping back and forth in time so often. It's all talk and it gets confusing after a while. And the motives behind the planned bombing aren't made at all clear. The motives behind the individuals involved are either formulaic (the black guy who is impotent) or unexplained (Shea's intellectualism). And I'm not sure why, in the last shot, the informer drops the pistol's hammer on an empty chamber while aiming at his boss's forehead.
In the end, I don't like having my nose rubbed in obvious propaganda either. That's why I don't generally like Costa-Gavras's work. But if this film is propaganda, I don't know which point of view is being peddled. Certainly not the domestic terrorists. For all their devotion and self-righteousness, I never felt for a moment that the writer/director was rooting for them to actually do it and get away with it, nor that he was urging the audience to root for them.
