Review: The Siege (1998)
JoBlo
RATING: 6.5 / 10 --> So-so
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Director Ed Zwick teams up with Mr. Denzel Washington (A gracious man
according to one of my friends who ran into him on the streets of
Montreal last month, munching on a hotdog and a baseball cap planted
firmly on his once-a-garbage-man head.) for the third time in 10 years
for this modern thriller. They previously worked together on 1989's
GLORY (For which Denzel won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor)
and 1996's COURAGE UNDER FIRE.
PLOT:
Super-straight FBI agent Anthony Hubbard (Washington), works alongside
his Lebanese-born partner, and CIA agent Kraft (Bening), to solve the
maze of terrorist attacks plaguing the city of New York. When the
terrorists commit acts beyond the scope of the FBI and the local New
York City police department, the US Army is asked to intervene, led by
able General Devereaux (Willis). The entire city is placed under
martial law, and all Arab-American suspects are persecuted and grilled
for information. The siege is set.
CRITIQUE:
Mediocre, preachy, self-righteous, thriller starring the great actor
Denzel Washington, which manages to hit some high points, but delves
into too many lulls and plot holes, along with a weak ending, to
maintain my high interest throughout. This film was pretty interesting
for the first half, but once the Army, and the wooden acting by Bruce
Willis came into the picture, things just seemed to drag on without
much real intensity. The final resolution with Willis also seemed quite
anti-climactic and too politically correct for my taste.
This movie has apparently angered many Arab groups and after having
seen the film, I guess I could see why that is. In my humble opinion,
there have been too many terrorists represented as Arabs in movies,
without enough reciprocracy for the rest of their cultural makeup (And
that's about as political as you'll ever get to see JoBlo, so enjoy it
while you can!) But I digress. On the other hand, this film does seem
to want to portray the entire big picture, instead of this simple
minority, and I guess that on that level, it does so intelligently and
effectively. I never really did understand why and what the Annette
Bening character did for a living (She seemed to be absolutely
everywhere in this film, but without much clear explanation as to how
she received clearance for anything), or why anyone, anywhere at
anytime would trust her in this film (But somehow, they all do?!)
Add to that the fact that Bruce Willis seems to have forgotten his
acting chops back in PULP FICTION (7.5/10) and NOBODY'S FOOL (8/10),
and reverted back to his old style of impersonating a piece of mahogany
lumber for this role (good choice, Bruce!). But when you really get
down to it, Denzel Washington is the glue that holds this long-winded
picture together. Year after year, this man continues to reassure us of
his magnificent acting talent, and emotionally lure us into each and
every one of the characters that he inhabits (Okay, so I'm not counting
VIRTUOSITY (5.5/10) !!). Otherwise, Annette was just annoying, while
Shalhoub was passable in his see-through role as the token "nice-guy"
Arab rep. Overall, the movie did pack some thrills, some action, some
interest, little originality, little effect and little sweet movie
aftertaste. I suggest you catch it on a cheapie night in the theatres,
or more sensibly, wait for it on video and enjoy it during those long
winter months.
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars:
Denzel Washington was once used in a Newsweek cover story about the
biological basis of the perception of beauty. He was cited as a key
example in a scientific explanation of why he is considered an
extremely handsome man. He's been happily married to the same woman
since 1982.
Annette Bening has been married to the "man with the golden nuts",
Warren Beatty since 1992. They've had three kids together. Apparently,
Warren saw Annette in THE GRIFTERS (6.5/10) and was so impressed with
her work (The shots of her naked goodies probably had nothing to do
with it, eh Warren?), that he sought her out for the romantic role
opposite him in BUGSY (7.5/10).
Bruce Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany.
Director Zwick executive-produced the famed baby boom TV drama
"thirtysomething" (1987).
Tony Shalhoub was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and married to actress
Brooke Adams (Who once turned down an offer to be one of the original
Charlie's Angels.) He played Antonio Scarpacci for several years on TV
"Wings" sitcom.
This film was previously titled AGAINST ALL ENEMIES and MARTIAL LAW.
Review Date: November 11, 1998
Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Lawrence Wright, Menno Meyjes and Edward Zwick (based on
story by Wright)
Producers: Lynda Obst and Edward Zwick
Actors: Denzel Washington as Anthony Hubbard
Annette Bening as Elise Kraft/ Sharon Bridger
Tony Shalhoub as Frank Haddad
Bruce Willis as General William Devereaux
Genre: Thriller
Year of Release: 1998
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(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian
az...@my-dejanews.com
New Hollywood product The Siege started this weekend in many theaters
across the USA. The plot of this movie, as well as several other
Hollywood movies (i.e. True Lies), is based on the issue of Arabic
terrorism. Because of the trend in American industry to depict Arabs as
fanatic terrorists, this movie received negative evaluation from several
Muslim and non-Muslim American Organizations, which called up to boycott
this movie. In order to decide myself I went to see The Siege last Saturday
afternoon.
Review.
First scenes took place somewhere in the Middle East in the desert with
violent CIA kidnapping of a sheik (presumably a leader of one of the Arabic
guerilla groups). After that action is transfered to New York City and
stays there for the rest of the movie.
Main characters include ?main-good-guy? - one of FBI chief officers (Denzel
Washington), ?controversial-but-good-guy-must-die-in-the-end? - CIA
operational officer (Annette Bening), ?main-bad-guy-must-die-in-the-end? -
her lover Palestinian fighter Sarik, ?auxilliary-good-guy? -
Lebanese-American FBI officer (Tony Shalhoub), ?stupid-good-guy? - army
general (Bruce Willis, who degraded now to supporting character roles). Most
of the time those characters verbally confront each other delivering standard
Hollywood dialog lines with a slight percentage of action montage which was
shot at a technical level somewhere between shooting the train of Lumiere
brothers and Soviet action movies.
First New-York based scene - Arabic-sounding music over panoramic view
of Manhattan canyons - leaves the audience in a quite a dismay. It is
strange because, as we all know, and as it is also shown later in the movie,
Muslim Middle East population in New-York City is mainly Brooklyn-based.
Muslims of Manhattan live in Harlem and South Bronx, belong mainly to the
Nation of Islam and have nothing to do with either Sunnis or Shiah or ?Arabic
terrorism?.
Then follows quite standard Hollywood disaster escalation: warning
bombing with the blue paint in the bus (there is quite elaborated and
plain stupid discussion why the paint is blue and not green) - explosion
of a city bus in Brooklyn - Broadway movie theater (where was a police,
which should be immediately mobilized to control all the public places)
- FBI building in New York City (certainly not a landmark, because it is
first time I heard of it).
The standard Hollywood trick - FBI vs CIA - is developed in this movie
ad absurdum - during whole movie the main obstacle in the investigation
is not a sophistication of terrorist conspiracy, but a stupid
opportunism of the CIA officer who is covering her lover - Palestinian
guy, sponsoring J-1 visas (which is simply impossible - by rules of INS
there should be an ORGANIZATION sponsoring them) used later by
terrorists.
Just note - this naive CIA officer sponsored a suicide-terrorist - who was
never arrested (except brief detention) not only in the first half of the
movie, but even when the whole Muslim Middle East population was apprehended
and incarcerated to a stadium (it is quite strange that in the following
demonstrations there were no participating Yankee fans demanding their
stadium back). High-ranked FBI agent could not save his son from detention,
but CIA agent could hide her lover - clue figure in investigation as every
character in the movie knows - until the very end of the movie!
The depiction of ?main-bad-guy? is plain stupid. I never saw such a bad
actor in major Hollywood movie. Besides the fact that he drinks wine (is
not he supposed to be a Muslim fanatic?) with his CIA lover, his face
knows only one very artificially looking expression of self-confident
arrogance and the lines he delivers is always plain political message.
Poor Annette Bening (?controversial-but-good-guy-must-die-in-the-end?)! The
supporting stuff of the movie had really bent over to mutilate her face,
haircut and clothes. They made her so disgusting, that I refuse completely to
understand why all the good and bad guys in the movie are so sexually
attracted to her. Is it a new kind of perversion to fall in love with a woman
dressed like a bum? The only explanation I have is that the director was
afraid that people will cry rivers of tears when she dies in the end. Well,
he certainly overshot - her death left the audience absolutely unemotional
(probably, because of the strange twist in director's mind - he decided that
the last words she should say should be 'inshallah' - which means 'if God
will permit', which is by itself has nothing to do with the situation and it
is strange for a CIA officer so fluent in Arabic).
There were quite a few moments that made the audience to react - a
couple of ordinary jokes made by Lebanese FBIer caused a couple of
laughing bursts in the audience. In the dull boring landscape of the
movie a joke comparing the radiotracking to a microwave should really
look like a gem.
Summarizing, this movie is very weak even at Hollywood standards. I
would disagree with both views: that The Siege is against
white-and-black view of Muslims (as the creators claim) and that it
hurts Muslims (as Muslim groups claim) simply because it is so vanilla stupid
that I am really surprised that it made $14M during its first weekend.
Indeed, American audience is attracted by bad reviews like a naive teenager is
attracted to bad guys.
P.S. There was a moment that touched me personally only in the evening when I
returned home. During Al-Fatiha (most favourite and popular Muslim prayer) I
suddenly remembered with sheer poignancy one moment in the movie - when the
only apprehended member of one of the terrorist groups (about half a dozen of
other ?bad guys? died during suicide explosions, massive killing in a gas
station and in the Brooklyn apartment) was delivering the same words that
every Muslim pronounces at least 10 times a day. He said ?[Allah], lead us by
the straight path, not the path of those who went astray? just before he was
brutally tortured, killed and sent to heaven by USA army general (Bruce
Willis). Since this guy appeared only first time in this movie, apparently he
was punished for praying.
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Steve Kong
A film review by Steve Kong
Edited by Cher Johnson
Copyright 1998 Steve Kong
A while ago, I saw an interview with ex-X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James
Wong. In the interview, Morgan and Wong, who wrote some of the most memorable
episodes of the show, were asked how they came up with some of their bizarre
ideas. The two looked at each other and answered with a short story. What they
did when out of ideas was look out their office window and just ask, "what
if?" about something ordinary. From there the two start asking "what if?"
about things related and that's how they spin the tales that they do. This
sounds like the same technique The Siege writers took when they wrote the
movie.
What if terrorists started terrorizing New York? What if the terrorists were
Arabs? What if society started turning against Arabs? What if Arabs were taken
and locked into concentration camps? What if the US law enforcement agencies
could not handle the terrorist activities? What if the US Army was called in
to handle the terrorists? What if you lost your freedom and your civil
liberties?
For the first two-thirds of The Siege, it was a wonderfully entertaining film.
This portion of the film follows FBI agent Anthony Hubbard (Denzel Washington)
and Frank Haddad (Tony Shalhoub) as they try to track down the terrorists
bombing New York City. This part of the film shows crackling good hard-boiled
detective work. The two meet a suspicious CIA agent, Elise Kraft (Annette
Bening), who may or may not be on their side.
The exact point when The Siege falls apart is easy to spot; it's when Bruce
Willis enters the film. I like Willis as an actor, and his acting is not the
reason The Siege starts to unravel. The character that Willis portrays ruins
the film. General William Devereaux is in charge of the Army presence that is
brought into New York City to shut it down and squeeze until the terrorists
come out. I'm not sure what happened, but it seemed that the writers at this
point just ran out of ideas. From this point on everything is contrived,
including the awful ending.
Ultimately, the major failings of The Siege is that it strives to be
politically correct. Because the filmmakers did not want to offend anyone, The
Siege ends up alienating everyone. The writers, Lawrence Wright, Menno Meyjes,
and Edward Zwick, know they are going to take heat for portraying Arabs as
terrorists, so they also write about Arabs who are taken into interment camps.
The problem is that the writers deal with both the terrorists and prisoners at
arms-length. We never get to know or feel for a prisoner and we never get to
know or feel for why the terrorists are doing what they're doing. The script
turns the Arab people into a lumped group of "they" or "them" instead of
having characters that we can relate to.
I was somewhat disappointed in The Siege when I look back and see the powerful
movies that have come from the collaboration between director Zwick and actor
Washington, such as Glory and Courage Under Fire. The Siege does not reach the
heights that these movies obtained.
The performances are all top-notch; even that of Bruce Willis. Washington, as
always, is intense and believable onscreen. He is given a few speeches where
he shows just how good of an actor he is - including a speech near the end of
the film where he talks about freedom and the Constitution. Bening is good as
the ever unclear, good or bad, CIA agent Elise Kraft.
The one performance that I enjoyed - even more than Washington's - is Tony
Shalhoub's performance. Shalhoub is able to switch, effortlessly, between
serious and playfully comic. Where Willis is too serious, Washington too
uptight, and Bening too crafty, Shalhoub is level and sane. Shalhoub brings
both humor and humanity to his character. Kudos to Tony Shalhoub for his
splendid performance in The Siege; he made the film watchable.
But, in the end, The Siege falls into mediocrity because it's not brave enough
to take a stance. Instead, The Siege wanders and tries to please everyone, but
fails miserably. Catch The Siege on video for the performances of Denzel
Washington, Annette Bening, Bruce Willis, and Tony Shalhaub.
---
Steve Kong rev...@boiled.sbay.org
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