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The Siege (DTS) Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 41 Reviews)

Even more relevant since 9/11, but undermined by the need to demonize the CIA & the U .S. Military
This movie has become even more relevant since it came out in 1998. It was controversial and there were very predictable cries of ethnic defamation and so forth. While it came out after the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the Khobar Towers, it seemed a bit over the top at the time, but less so after 9/11.

I enjoyed Denzel Washington's performance a great deal as FBI agent Tony Hubbard. Tony Shalhoub is superb as Agent Frank Haddad who is caught between his actual loyalties to America and his job and the ethnic hysteria a series of bombings has set off. This is one of Shalhoub's few dramatic roles and he is terrific. I would like to see more of them. He provides intensity when interviewing a suspect, heartbreak, panic, and fury when his son is taken by the military when rounding up all Arab young men, and even comic relief when they break into a military surveillance team and he notices the kind of superior equipment they have to what he is used to and says, "Microwave!" It is a perfect moment.

Annette Bening's Elise/Susan CIA character gives a solid performance in a role that is more of a function than a person. They needed a female in there somewhere and she is definitely that, but her function is to show the inherent complications of the CIA and how one is never sure of much in the world of intelligence except that things are different than they seem on the surface. This causes some problems for the movie's conclusion, which I cannot discuss.

Even worse than the cartoonization of the CIA is the demonization of the U. S. Military. Poor Bruce Willis is given a thankless role as a completely unbelievable role of a U. S. General who wants nothing more than to bring martial law to the country to round up what he believes are a few dozen members of various cells plotting terror. Puh-leeze. Sure, the general mouths pleadings to not be set loose within the borders of the U.S., but that is like asking to not be thrown in the briar patch. And he immediately resorts to brutal tactics including torture / murder and putting thousands of young Arab males into an improvised prison camp at a sports stadium.

Not only is this a completely stupid way to try and find a couple of dozen terrorists, it is guaranteed to create a worse political situation for the Washington politicians than they had with the bombing. It is interesting to note that 9/11 was worse than anything in this movie and we responded to it with nothing like the reaction in the movie.

Still, the notion of the cells and their continuing work is quite interesting and shows the kind of difficulties our police and intelligence (and military) agencies have in fighting this very real war we are in. I am not going to note the differences between the way the Arab leaders acted in the movie and the way CAIR and other Arab leaders have acted and spoken since 9/11, but I am sure you will notice them clearly.

Not a great film, but it has some pretty good moments provided almost exclusively by Shalhoub and Washington. Bening and Willis give good efforts in roles undermined by nature of their roles and the script.

An ironic anachronism, replete with Hollywood PC shibboleths
You can tell this movie was released in 1998 because you can still see New York's Twin Towers standing, and because of the groveling incantations of "Islam is a religion of peace," repeated often enough (along with casting a Good Guy Arab Cop, Tony Shalhoub) to offset any PC-incorrect image of portraying Islamofascist terrorism.

A measure of how silly this movie appears from the rearview mirror of 2006 and all the ghastly Islamofascist atrocities since 9/11 is the first terrorist scene in the movie, where Denzel Washington as FBI agent tries, via megaphone, to talk the terrorists down from a hostage situation. He succeeds in getting the terrorists to let children exit the bus. Jihadis with a conscience -- now where have we ever seen this actually happen - Beslan (186 children killed)? London? Madrid? Mumbai? Only as old people start to exit the bus on a second appeal by Denzel does the bus blow up.

After a series of bombings in New York's supermarkets, movie theaters, restaurants, etc., pressure builds to call in the U.S. Army under martial law. Bruce Willis, the Army commander who is to take on this task, warns time and again that this isn't the proper role of the Army, but then, as one of the President's advisors explains in the movie, as if this is just one of those political things, the "President wants to appear presidential." Remember, this is 1998, and though critics of the movie, such as the New Yorker, refer to Willis's character as a "fascist U.S. Army general", the decision to grant him martial law authority would have been, ahem, none other than Bill Clinton. The movie slides by that little detail, however, to make it look like Willis, all on his own, is rounding up all able-bodied men of the Muslim persuasion (less draconian, by the way, than the rounding up of all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast by FDR, where the threat was less real and imminent than in this movie, but let's not talk about that, either; we're still in 1998, after all).

Of course, the CIA comes in for its usual whipping by Hollywood, where CIA agent Annette Bening has kept crucial facts to herself because she has personal scores to settle -- you see, she is the one who trained and armed some of these terrorists who are now running amok. Oh, yeah, sure, women-hating Al-Qaeda types would allow somebody like pretty Annette to train them!

But the best nonsense comes at the end: Denzel Washington and a handful of FBI agents rush into Army combat HQ and somehow surround Bruce Willis and pull their guns, saying he is under arrest for "violating the Constitution" (hey, why aren't they arresting the guy who ordered the martial law, Bill Clinton?). The general's clueless security detail also draws its guns, and there's a Mexican standoff. Denzel, using the same powers of persuasion that freed at least the kiddies from Islamofascist murder on the bus, appears to be succeeding in talking the Army soldiers out of using their guns to protect Willis. So Willis accepts the situation, allows himself to be arrested, and as the credits roll we see all these Army vehicles leaving Brooklyn in shame -- all it took was to bust the "fascist" general. Ta-dah!

So the movie, with a heap of literary license, proves at least one point at the end: back in the 1990s, it didn't take much for Bill Clinton to wuss out and avoid taking on the terrorists.

Meanwhile, some day, sooner or later, the idea of pre-emptive internment of Jihad-age Muslim men as a defensive measure will indeed catch on, if not here, then perhaps in France, the Netherlands, Russia, Israel -- it will be interesting to see who goes first. Because it is not just the Newtonian laws of physics that decree that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When they do the sequel to this preposterous movie in New York sans the World Trade Center, Willis will play the part of the hero, and whoever gets stuck with the FBI agent role will be the fool.

I give the movie two stars instead of one, because I would hate to discourage the making of such a sequel, and two, because any movie with Annette Bening in it automatically gets an extra star in my book.

Good Action
Not just another action film, but one with a stroy behind it. Makes you think about whether or not we will ever be safe in the USA again.

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