One of the major flaws in contemporary topical thrillers — from “Red Corner” and “Crimson Tide” to “Air Force One” and “The Rock” — is that the moviemakers’ ability to convey the illusion of reality (or at least to fake what we usually see on TV) has outstripped their ability to craft plausible stories. And, between truth and thrills, the latter wins every time.
In most cases, modern audiences don’t seem to mind. Maybe, as long as the surface of the story is full of detail and TV newsy rhythms, the inner illusion of reality doesn’t matter any more.
Take “The Siege,” an extremely well-made thriller from director-writer Edward Zwick that, for me, doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s certainly a diverting show, though. While we’re watching attractive and intelligent actors like Denzel Washington, Annette Bening and Tony Shalhoub run around desperately coping with an Arab terrorist conspiracy to plunge New York City into a reign of terror, and while General Bruce Willis throws the whole city under martial law, things move so fast, we may just try to hang on for the ride.
But hey, whoa. “The Siege” asks us to believe that a band of 20 fanatic Arab terrorists, imported to wreak bloody vengeance on a U.S. government that arrested their leader, can bring New York City to its knees, completely disrupting not only the New York Police Department but the FBI and CIA. That’s not all. These hyperactive bad guys throw the world’s most powerful city into such chaos that martial law is declared and a bullying general — played by Willis can get an executive order to take over the town.
How does this happen? Well, in the distant sandy Middle East, Sheik Ahmed Bin Talal (played by Ahmed Ben Larby) is kidnapped and arrested by U.S. officials. Immediately, hell breaks loose. Joint terrorist NYPD-FBI liaison chief Anthony Hubbard (Washington)) and his crack Arab-American sidekick Frank Haddad (Shalhoub) are suddenly confronted with money transfers, chases, shootouts and a wild hostage bus bomb standoff that ends, strangely, with a bus full of people smeared with blue paint.
That’s just a dress rehearsal, though. The next bomb blows up real people. Then bombs start exploding in crowded theaters and federal office buildings. Impudent interloper Elise Kraft (Bening), a.k.a. Sharon Bridger, shows up, claiming to be a government spook and exhibiting a suspiciously vast knowledge of terrorists.
Soon, things go completely haywire, and President Bill Clinton (who appears via film clip) sends in the insubordinate Gen. Bill Devereaux (Willis), who promptly takes over the city, terrorizes the Arab-American population by herding them into camps and starts a general campaign of torture, glowering and smirking — under which, nobody (not even Haddad’s family) is safe.
Can Agent Hubbard find the terrorist cells and stop Devereaux from turning the Big Apple into a gulag? Can Kraft — or whoever she is — survive simultaneous mad affairs with mysterious suspect Samir Nazhde (Sami Bouajila) and sultry flirtations with Hubbard? Can New York survive the most devastating assault on its honor since the last Knicks-Bulls series? And will those incredibly energetic terrorists succeed in taking Manhattan — and maybe The Bronx and Staten Island, too?
Tune in tomorrow. Or better yet, give us a break.
“The Siege” may not be the poisonous anti-Muslim melodrama some Islamic anti-defamation groups have suggested. (In comparison with most movies like this, especially the noxious “Executive Decision,” it bends over backward to be fair.) But it’s certainly a far-fetched and often foolish movie. And since it’s presented with lots of flash, dash, flair and expertise by top-rank moviemakers and actors, it goes down too easily for comfort. It’s one of those fast, slick, half-smart shows that can’t decide whether to pay its debts to action or reality — and winds up cheating both.
There’s some good stuff here.
Washington, Shalhoub, Bening — and even Willis — are almost enough to tip the balance in its favor. Bening shines at suggesting the frowzy guilt tearing apart her character. (We learn eventually that the terrorists are motivated by a betrayal in which she was involved.) And Washington and Shalhoub are expert at conveying real human tension and anguish beneath the tight-lipped surfaces and formulas. Shalhoub has the toughest role; he has to counteract “The Siege’s” seemingly unavoidable Arab terrorist cliches by giving us a believable tough-nice guy who can carry us through the story’s moral hairpin curves. And Washington once again shows that he’s one of the most natural and graceful — and psychologically savvy — leading men in movies today.
Zwick can be a model modern genre moviemaker. He’s made fine war movies and westerns (“Glory,” “Legends of the Fall”) — and even a good romantic comedy (“About Last Night”). Here, he’s obviously trying to make a sensible modern political thriller: an entertaining movie that uses our fears after the World Trade Center bombing, without going overboard into fear-mongering.
But Zwick and his writers haven’t put enough behind their main characters. As in most modern thrillers of this kind, they simply throw us into the whirlpool and trust that we’ll learn enough by watching the reactions to chaos. But just one scene (or preferably several) in the Haddad household would have gone miles toward helping us understand his situation and erase any taint of prejudice. So would more scenes of Hubbard’s home life. Or Elise’s and Deveraux’s. (And maybe even Clinton’s.)
Like most techno-thrillers, though, this sometimes admirable, always jaw-dropping “Siege’ is too bent on cutting to the chase to give us the skinny on who’s chasing whom, what and why. It’s a shame. These people could have done it, and audiences could use some smart movie thrills. And New York City — at least in a movie — could use another good shaking up.
”THE SIEGE”
(star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Edward Zwick; written by Lawrence Wright, Menno Meyjes & Zwick; photographed by Roger Deakins; edited by Steven Rosenblum; production designed by Lilly Kilvert; music by Graeme Revell; produced by Lynda Obst, Zwick. A 20th Century Fox release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:50. MPAA rating: R (language, sensuality, nudity, violence).
THE CAST
Anthony Hubbard …………….. Denzel Washington
Elise Kraft/Sharon Bridger …… Annette Bening
General William Devereaux ……. Bruce Willis
Frank Haddad ……………….. Tony Shalhoub
Samir Nazhde ……………….. Sami Bouajila
Shiek Ahmed Bin Talal ……….. Ahmed Ben Larby
