Jesse Ventura, when asked to praise U.S. democracy, wryly remarked: "I think its great we have one more choice than Communist Russia". And such is the nature of party politics on film, for director/producer Ed Zwick ('Glory', 'Blood Diamond') fumbles an otherwise interesting premise with 'The Siege' (1998) by refusing to condemn his party of choice; namely the Democrats and Jazz loving philander, then president Bill Clinton; in this controversial, muddled, though just about tolerable, political thriller. After U.S. storm troopers kidnap & torture a prominent Arab sheik in Iraq, enacting the neo-fascist policy now known by its Orwellian euphemism: 'Rendition', random retaliation comes home in the form of a deadly bus bombing in New York City. Enter veteran FBI man Hubb (a typically stoic, if unsurprisingly uninspired, performance by Denzel Washington) his partner, token Arab-American Haddad (Tony Shalhoub making the best of an underwritten role), scheming sex-kitten / CIA operative Sharon Bridger (steely Annette Benning) and Bruce Willis, who proves he's got a sense of humour after all; lampooning his right-wing views as U.S. General William Deveraux; an evil military mastermind and all round bad apple in the Big Apple, whose out to declare martial law: imprison / torture young Muslim men, lockdown the entire borough and terrify New Yorkers into surrendering their civil liberties. For just as the Devil has all the best tunes, so too does the General get most of the best lines, unfortunately, that only serves to turn 'The Siege' into an unintentional, 'Dr. Strangelove'-esque satire that feels detached from the cat & mouse antics of the first half, which itself feels detached from the politicised, yet implausibly neat, conclusion: "APCs, helicopters, tanks and of course the ubiquitous M-16 A2 assault rifle", whispers Deveraux, "A humble enough weapon until you see it in the hands of a man outside your local bowling alley or 7-11. It will be noisy, it will be scary and it will not be mistaken for a parade".

Like Peter Berg's recent thriller 'The Kingdom', 'The Siege' is at its worst when it attempts hyper-real tie-ins with actual events e.g. even in 1998, it was a well documented, albeit later suppressed, fact that Zionist sympathisers within the FBI had built & delivered the truck-bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Centre terror attack, and yet there's no mention of that whatsoever when said event is referenced in this movie. Could it be that screenwriter Lawrence Wright simply didn't know? Perhaps: for we'd sooner forgive ignorance than we would a malicious intent to misinform. I don't think 'The Siege' is a racist film per say, just one that finds it hard to accept that Republicans & Democrats are two sides of the same coin when it comes to taking orders from 'Military Industrial Complex' plutocrats, Israeli lobbyists, neo-pagan cultists, chickenhawks & the corporate cabals who run congress. For its loathe to admit that Clinton's regime was directly responsible for the murder of over 100,000 Iraqis via genocidal sanctions, terrorist attacks and air-strikes hence compounding the Malthusian degeneracy of George Bush senior. An overtly sinister and well directed sequence in an impromptu concentration camp (i.e. a football stadium with cages on the field and torture chambers in the locker room) makes for difficult viewing in light of atrocities committed in 'Abu Ghraib', Guantanamo Bay and countless other prisons / gulags around the world. For there's a particularly disturbing scene, one made all the more unsettling by the presence of an all star cast, in which a terror suspect is stripped naked and interrogated by Deveraux and Bridger, only for Hub to burst in and denounce his allies' depravity with a good speech about civil rights and the rule of law. Its a very powerful scene, brilliantly acted and the reason why 'The Siege' earns an extra star, but some could say that its' the right argument in the wrong context, for there is no us and them, only an insidious Hegelian paradigm of deceit, 'Problem-Reaction-Solution' instigated by the very government & nation whose deeds and falsified history our hero glorifies without question. 'The Siege' is an average, sometimes engaging film that falters for a variety of reasons: lack of research, socio-political and general knowledge being among its most obvious flaws. An honourable attempt at inter-racial inclusivity botched by the classic faux pas: "They love this country as much as we do", Benning's dangerous older woman romancing a lusty young Arab (who may or may not be a terrorist), it's the stuff of colonial comic books projected through a filter of self-righteous delusion, one which only serves to undermine some of the film's more coherent and thought provoking points. Pro-American bias coupled with the old 'best intentions' spiel and inter-agency conflict soon begins to grate, and seems more like an excuse for U.S. terror than a credible dramatic angle. Trite to all but those who've never seen an Alex Jones documentary, read an essay by John Pilger or had the opportunity to seek out director Sut Jhally's must see documentary 'Reel Bad Arabs'; in which Dr. Jack G. Shaheen has the last word on Hollywood's shameful history of enforcing naturalized prejudice through state dictated propaganda. Now we all know the military works hand-in-glove with the powers that be, Deveraux even says words to that effect when he advises some chickenhawk senator against sending in troops, so the fact that this movie seems content to hang (or ludicrously; arrest) those who do the dirty work and let the real villains go scot free, is a testament to the screenwriter's naivety about how the world works. As if the federal government is actually going to bring its own henchmen to justice; its times like this that you wish Denzel Washington was more Malcolm X or his Creasy character from 'Man on Fire' than a speechifying suit who thinks everything will just sort itself sort. Critics often slate director Ed Zwick and though he's known to employ the now hilarious 'White-Man-In-Foreign-Land-Who-Wins-The-Native's-Begrudging-Respect' narrative structure, I usually enjoy his films a great deal: 'Legends Of The Fall' and 'The Last Samurai' in particular, but 'The Siege', his third collaboration with Denzel, is, like their previous movies together (the overrated 'Glory' and below par 'Courage Under Fire') somewhat of a non-starter. For this is not, by any stretch, a serious or well researched film about terrorism, nor is it anathema to good taste or part of some right-wing conspiracy. 'The Siege' will neither enlighten, inform or even entertain all that much, but if you want to see how Denzel Washington outfoxes an armoured Humvee and successfully evades a TIA police state satellite spy system by, wait for it; running down an alley, then this is the film for you. 'The Siege' puts up a good fight, but ultimately loses 'The War on Tedium'.