Homeland Security

I went into this expecting a dramatization of the events. I am not a big fan of that type of film so I was not expecting much. I was surprised to discover it was not. What I found was a plotline surrounding the creation of some new secret agency, foreshadowing of enemy intentions, and a cliffhanger ending. Acting and technical aspects are excellent for a tv movie. Some plot elements are very cliched but it flows and is very watchable. Skerrit portrays an admiral quite ably but I find my self curious about the backstory of many of the main characters.

I hope someday to see an unbiased documentary about the attack, but I expect many important things will remain classified till long after my lifetime.

6/10

I had been curious for a while about HOMELAND SECURITY because of its cast, the low score of 4,1 and the notion that back in 2005 it probably was aired on channel 2. Last December I finally saw it and I found it a bit better than the score reserved for nearly the worst movies might make you assume.

The story is set some days after the 9/11 attacks. Retired Admiral Theodore McKee (Tom Skerritt) receives a call from the White House that since he has been a commander in chief he has to serve again, and once in the White House he is invested of the charge of senior member of the Homeland Security team. Soon we see that NSA agent Sol Binder (Leland Orser) kinda predicted a terrorist attack where the numbers 9 and 11 kept popping out but since there wasn't yet a OHS team the attack couldn't have been avoided. As the movie goes on there are also different subplots including the invasion of Afghanistan, the Custom agents on the Canadian border stopping a vehicle carrying explosives for an attempted bombing, the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, destruction of Al Quaeda training camps and McKee's daughter Melissa that luckily avoided the flight that had been hijacked by terrorists. But soon after despite avoiding tragedy, Melissa witnessed some training of bombers while in the OHS office they are all discussing of alerting properly the US population about an eventual other attack.

While the pace was stale in some points what prevented me to give it a 1 or 2 was that the acting was good by nearly all (Skerritt, Scott Glenn, Glenn Morshower and Michael Cudlitz especially) and it was a decent view about the Homeland Security division before and after the 9/11 attacks.

Not a bad movie by any means but I am also now assuming that some of the haters might be some conspiracy theorists.

A confusing, episodic TV movie that was either cut down from a lengthy mini-series or written by a committee that never met. Is it based on fact? or purely fiction? or somewhere in between? Perhaps all or none of the above; it is never clear. The footage that was left on the cutting room floor may have fleshed out the subplots and characters and clarified just what was going on. Maybe the DVD will be complete, although I doubt that even intact this film would be worthwhile. The acting by has-beens and never-weres is passable at best, while the writing is not. Some of the dialog sounds like political posturing, and the "climax" would make Frank Capra cringe. After 9/11, one commentator asked how long it would be before a film would try to capitalize on the events. Now we have the answer.

Why must every network jump the gun in releasing tv-movies based on recent events. First there was the DC sniper movie. Then you have the Lacy Peterson movie. Both of which came out BEFORE the trials had been completed. And now, barely two years after 9/11, we have a 9/11 movie. Before the (un-necessary) War in Iraq and the abandoned War on Terror (or, according to our esteemed Mr. Bush, "War on Terra") have even accomplished their goals, before the investigation of the government's mess-ups has been completed, and long before the conspirators behind the attacks have been brought to justice (I'm even starting to doubt they'll ever be brought to justice).

Anyway, network greed and my own personal opinions on the events don't have any bearing on this movie. So, I digress and must comment on the movie.

All things considered, the plot of the movie goes all over the place. The direction and writing is short-sighted at best. We're given various twisting plotlines, that, by the end of the movie, leave tons of loose ends with no real solution (maybe its because the real-life plotlines haven't found a solution either...).

We're presented with Scott Glenn, a veteran FBI or CIA or something agent, who's on the border of retirement. Following 9/11 those plans go out the window (obviously). We're also shown another CIA agent, Marisol Nichols (most notably the scatter brained Griswold daughter in 'Vegas Vacation'), who's on stake-out outside a terrorist hide out. Needless to say, the FBI rains on her parade and kills one of her suspects. But, she takes the other one, giving the FBI a friendly greeting as she goes. Then we have Beth Broderick (the aunt of MJH in 'Sabrina: The Teenage Witch') and Tom Skerritt, who's daughter almost gets on one of the doomed planes. We are also shown various scenes from Afghanistan, which contribute almost nothing to the failing plot. Thankfully NBC didn't completely sell their soul to the devil. They didn't actually show planes crashing into buildings... just news footage of smoking buildings.

Overall, this is a short-signed, quickly done, low budget movie that tries to capitalize on fear and headlines: stock footage, low grade actors, and all. I guess I could've forgiven the greedy pigs at NBC, had they not further trivialized the events by including product placement (don't we all want to chug Minute Maid Orange juice when we find out girlfriend might be dead?).

I doubt NBC, or any other network, will re-air this turkey. But, if by chance they do, skip this. Well, unless you do want to see your two/three-year old nightmares interpreted by a bunch of greedy network execs and thrown back at you.

Rating: 3/10

I rented this movie the other day on DVD and knew nothing about it other than what was on the jacket. I read other users comments and felt compelled to comment as well. Despite the low budget casting and filming processes, I felt that the message conveyed in this film was very good. The message? Well, one that came across to me was that no matter what status a person has in society, people are just human.

Considering the finger pointing for blame on the terrorist attacks (past and present), this movie conveyed that we are all human with frailties. How would a mother and father respond to their potential son-in-law's father being imprisoned and considering how smoothly he had logical answers directed toward him when interrogated. We can all be easily fooled and terrorists are experts with intensive training to play upon human traits, whether we are an American or not.

One thing, though, that I wished this movie would have attempted to clarify more was regarding Homeland Security set up and its' boundaries for the homeland. Is America going to have another agency with such power it can abuse and terrorize Americans similarly to the IRS? I agree, having an agency that combines databases of other agencies sounds cool, but the message I derived from this movie is that this set up for another agency was vastly opportunistic. Hence, I personally felt terror from this movie in this regard and how this agency will be run and what boundaries/limitations have been set, if any. After all, even I had trouble with Tom Skerritt's role of even being considered to set up such an operation ... just not the type or very credible ... just a nice old meandering neighborly guy, eh? Sure, like this is the kind of man now in charge? Perhaps keep him on the Lifetime movie channel. But, gee, maybe using him in this role helped to use this movie as a tool to influence people to be supportive enough to pay more taxes to support this new undefined (unrestricted?) powerful agency? Am I the only one who was left with feeling more terror about this new agency after viewing this film?

Regarding other non-ending pieces and parts, I felt that this was intentional to provoke thought processing for viewers. If there had been more film with the tracking down of the terrorists and other things, it would have taken away from the human quality of this film.

With that said, I felt this movie was very good in conveying that people are human and if it helped to teach some people not to let their emotions take charge in serious decision-making , then it succeeded in that degree.