The Siege

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The Siege
The movie poster for The Siege.
Directed by	Edward Zwick
Produced by	Lynda Obst Edward Zwick
Written by	Lawrence Wright Menno Meyjes Edward Zwick
Starring	Denzel Washington Annette Bening and Bruce Willis Tony Shaloub Sami Bouajila David Proval
Music by	Graeme Revell
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	November 6, 1998
Running time	116 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

For other uses, see The Siege (disambiguation).

The Siege is a 1998 film about a fictional situation where terrorist cells have made several attacks on New York City. Directed by Edward Zwick and starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Annette Bening, and Tony Shalhoub.

1 Story
2 Cast
3 Analysis
4 External links
5 See also

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie is about FBI agent Anthony Hubbard (Washington) trying to prevent several bus bombs from going off in New York City. After a terrorist sleeper cell succeeds in destroying one bus, the FBI identifies the cells responsible and conducts a raid. During the ensuing shootout, the members of the cell are killed. However, the elimination of the first cell activates the work of a second sleeper cell, which succeeds in bombing a Broadway theater. The second cell is eliminated, and the third cell then successfully bombs the offices of the FBI Counterterrorism Unit at One Federal Plaza. The President responds by declaring martial law and sending in the Army, led by tough Major General William Deveraux (Willis), leading to a three-way conflict between the federal agents, the army, and the terrorists.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

Denzel Washington as FBI Special Agent Anthony Hubbard
Annette Benning as Elise Kraft / Sharon Bridger
Bruce Willis as U.S. Army Major General William Devereaux
Tony Shaloub as FBI Special Agent Frank Haddad
Sami Bouajila as Samir Nazhde

[edit] Analysis

Controversially, the film depicted mass internment of people of Arab appearance, regarded as an unlikely scenario at the time of the film's pre-9/11 release.

Although released nearly three years before the September 11th attacks, some elements of the film can be seen as prescient, such as the depiction of attacks on New York City by Islamist terrorists, including attacks on US government buildings, as well as an ensuing anti-Arab sentiment among some segments of the public.

Other elements of the film, however, such as martial law and the mass internment of Arab-Americans, have not yet come to pass.

"Blowback" is a key theme of the film. "Blowback" is CIA term used to describe the unforseen consquences of their operations abroad. In the film, the reason Sheik Ahmed Bin Talal and his followers commit terrorist acts against the USA is because they were allied with America in the fight against Saddam Hussein. The CIA funded him and taught his followers tradecraft, subversion and how to make bombs. Then there was a policy shift and America stopped helping them, and they were slaughtered. But enough of them escaped and were given visas to come to America.

Attached to the film was the teaser trailer to the long-awaited Star Wars film The Phantom Menace. It was reported that a large number of people had paid to see the film just to watch the trailer, and then walked out after the trailer had screened [1].