Homeland Security

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.

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.

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.

"Homeland Security" wasn't the worst, but by the same token, wasn't all that great. I guess I expected a little better out of this, since the cast was pretty decent; Tom Skeritt (Picket Fences), Beth Broderick (Sabrina The Teenage Witch), Scott Glenn (Silverado and Backdraft) and Stephi Lineburg was good as Melissa McKee, Admiral McKee's (Skeritt) daughter.

What I liked about it was the timeline from events leading to September 11th, 9/11 itself and the formation of the US Department of Homeland Security. I especially liked that they didn't dwell on 9/11, although it was a tragic event and what lead to the formation of the US Department Homeland Security, we all know what happened, lived through it and I didn't want to see a another long drawn out version of it. That would've been the easy thing to do.

The problem I had with this show, is I'm trying to figure out what it's supposed to be. Is this a movie, a mini-series or a pilot to a new drama/action series? By the end of the show, there were many "loose ends" that needed to be tied, especially the final scene, but it looks like it won't be. I'm assuming that this was supposed to be a pilot to new series, NBC bought it, but changed their minds and scrapped it.

* 1/2 out of 5 for being incomplete

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.