Post by dustdevil28 on Oct 8, 2012 7:41:41 GMT -8
Recently I had some free time and checked out a series which got a lot of hype last year, "homeland."
For those that don't know, the basic premiss is that a marine captured in Iraq was held by terrorists for multiple years and is eventually turned against his own nation.
After he is rescued, he goes back to America with a heros welcome. He has a hard time adapting back to life and struggles to readapt of family life, and living a double life as a terrorist. At the same time a CIA operative who was tipped off about an American POW being turned, focuses on the Marine and follows quitely investigates him, not wanting to broadcast an investigation into a national hero.
All this makes for a compelling storyline but I wound up hating it.
I thought with the marine being turned it would be more like the "manchurian" (sp?) candidate. It wasn't. What it was was the "noble savage" storyline of muslims driven to terrorism because of atrocities committed by American. Atriocities which are later covered up in the news. This is also what drives the marine to consciously turn against America.
This storyline is bad enough, but the CIA operative is just as bad IMHO. Played by Cate Blanchett, she starts out determined, professional, and very skilled. Liked this early intro, but she later starts becoming very unprofessional, when her investigation is called off she arranges to bump into the marine multiple times to the point of sleeping with him multiple times. She become a bipolar headcase completely unsuitable for the CIA, but the story continues.
Where it continued, I don't know, but I tend to not like films which portray America as committing atrocities, and muslims as the victims compelled to strike back.
-DD
For those that don't know, the basic premiss is that a marine captured in Iraq was held by terrorists for multiple years and is eventually turned against his own nation.
After he is rescued, he goes back to America with a heros welcome. He has a hard time adapting back to life and struggles to readapt of family life, and living a double life as a terrorist. At the same time a CIA operative who was tipped off about an American POW being turned, focuses on the Marine and follows quitely investigates him, not wanting to broadcast an investigation into a national hero.
All this makes for a compelling storyline but I wound up hating it.
I thought with the marine being turned it would be more like the "manchurian" (sp?) candidate. It wasn't. What it was was the "noble savage" storyline of muslims driven to terrorism because of atrocities committed by American. Atriocities which are later covered up in the news. This is also what drives the marine to consciously turn against America.
This storyline is bad enough, but the CIA operative is just as bad IMHO. Played by Cate Blanchett, she starts out determined, professional, and very skilled. Liked this early intro, but she later starts becoming very unprofessional, when her investigation is called off she arranges to bump into the marine multiple times to the point of sleeping with him multiple times. She become a bipolar headcase completely unsuitable for the CIA, but the story continues.
Where it continued, I don't know, but I tend to not like films which portray America as committing atrocities, and muslims as the victims compelled to strike back.
-DD