Segurança Máxima

This TV movie (supposed to be a series) is nothing more than an attempt at propaganda fear-mongering. It is offensively stupid. I can't believe the network didn't pick it up, considering the subject matter, but the fact that no one watched it gives some glimmer of hope for American Television.

Avoid watching this 'movie' if at all possible. The poor excuse for a plot, the stilted acting, the lousy directing... they all add up to something as base as anything I've ever seen on television. It would be easy to believe the idea for this series came straight from the White House Press Office, and it's hard to conceive how anyone who was not a complete lackey to the current administration could sit though this.

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.

Being among the first to contribute to the user comments, I feel somewhat on thin ice on this one.

I noticed on the comments threads that several viewers thought the timing was wrong for this subject, and that it was a Republican billboard during an election year. All that aside, I did watch the complete movie, despite the many commercial interruptions. Flow and continuity is important to any pseudo documentary (which is how I would classify this work), documentary, or docudrama. It was difficult enough following the many different locations and mini-plots. To accurately depict the depth and scope of this topic, much more time is needed, and the many commercial breaks would have to be eliminated, which obviously won't happen on a network movie. All of the historical events visited, although based in fact, were given only a token presentation, and were intertwined with fictional characters and plots.

It is entirely possible that the writers of this movie were attempting to accurately show the progression of the Middle East terrorism threat from the early 90's through post 9/11. Unfortunately, the span of this topic just can't be fit into the traditional movie length. Think about doing justice to War And Peace or The Godfather in 90 minutes.

The single redeeming part of this movie might be a rather corny and feeble attempt at showing all of us how the Department of Homeland Security was formed, it's makeup, and it's function. However, one would do better to pick up a copy of last week's Newsweek for a more fulfilling explanation.



Reflecting back on this movie, I feel like I watched 7 years of history on a fast-forward videotape. We all know the historical facts quite well, and most of this was a review of the high and low points, spiced up (or down) with soap opera style emotional tidbits.

Yes, if the purpose of this presentation is strictly entertainment, the timing is wrong (and always will be). If enlightenment is the target, it missed the mark and might stand accused of being sloppy historical revisionism. Politically, it did lean rather heavily toward the right. The historical time line is full of holes, which were plugged with emotional sugar lumps. Technically fairly well written, acted, and directed.

I was comfortable with this movie right after watching it, but having written the preceding, I now am not very pleased with it. There's a bit too much of an Oliver Stone undercurrent. Take it with a grain of salt, and don't expect too much.

The only success of this film is its consistency in failure to ask questions regarding the events it appears to portray. Watch this film for a one-dimensional, pro-American, anti-historical and completely illogical portrayal of the events surrounding 9/11 and its immediate aftermath. The disgusting thing is that, now in 2007, this film is still shown (I had the displeasure to watch this film today June 2007 on Britain's Sky Movies) despite its huge flaws and inaccuracies. Watch this film, but only if you do not cherish your knowledge and education. Films such as this should be scrapped.

I gave this film a 1 simply because I cannot give it a zero, which it truly deserves.

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.