Posted on 04/22/2005 5:44:35 AM PDT by SJackson
"The Interpreter," a new movie starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, is a thriller about a terrorist assassination plot at the United Nations. The Wall Street Journal's "Hollywood Report" ran a piece last week detailing how the picture has been "changed" since it was first conceived about 10 years ago. Nothing unusual about that — finished movies almost never resemble their original concepts. There was one major change in the story that I found interesting, however.
The terrorists in the story, as originally written by two screenwriters, were to have come from a fictional Middle Eastern country. Throughout the 90's the script bounced from producer to producer, each claiming the story just wasn't ready to be filmed in its present form. Finally Kevin Misher became interested in the project and the plot was reworked.
Because of the 9/11 attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists in 2001, Misher didn't want to make the terrorists in his movie Middle Eastern. "We didn't want to encumber the film in politics in any way," Misher said. So now the assassination plot involves a fictional African country called Matobo. Matobo — great name.
Did you get that? He didn't want to "encumber the film in politics." What is he talking about? Middle Eastern terrorists have been blowing people up all over the world for years. Are there terrorists that come from other regions? Yes. But the preeminent terrorist danger to the civilized world right now happens to be oozing out of the Middle East, not Africa, not Northern Ireland, not Antarctica. Besides, in the original treatment the Middle Eastern country mentioned was also fictional. Why is it okay to have terrorists from a fictional country in Africa, but not from a fictional country in the Mid East?
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
I remember in the mid-70's the most common stereotype in Hollywood entertainment with the filth rich oil sheik dressed in bed sheets.
Thanks for posting this review. This movie now goes on my "do not watch" list along with "The Sum of all Fears" for its blatant refusal to acknowledge current political reality. The next time I watch a movie about terrorists will be when Hollyweird is truthful about who they are, supports the military, and supports the War on Terror, just as strongly as they supported our efforts in WWII.
The really perverse thing about this is that, by making a bowdlerized movie and not playing it straight, they are wasting a lot of money on two A list stars and all the special effects. If they really wanted a mega bucks blockbuster, all they'd have to do is play it straight and show the terrorists as Mideastern Muzzies.
bump
Matobo--wasn't that the name of the virus in "Outbreak"? How original.
gee... a movie with Sean Penn in the lead, about political assassination at the UN. I would expect this movie to be about how horrible the US is, and how they assassinate some world leader at the UN to prevent a scandal involving some evil big US companies...
My wife and I rented "24 Hours," by 1:00 AM I was thoroughly nauseated by the PCness of it all. The "good guys" were so multiethnic/multigendered that they could have donned spandex and played The Legion of Superheroes and the "bad guys" were a white supremacist cult. How daring, how controversial! What a bunch of weinies!
Wake me when Hollyweird makes an anti communism movie. Until then, it's all drek to me.
I didn't see it. It had a verrrry limited release.
Having seen that film, I can tell you it blatantly refuses to acknowledge any other reality.
Case in point: A nuclear bomb detonates in Boston. The shockwave brings down the helicopter carrying the lead character, Jack Ryan, played by Ben Affleck. Now, one would think that with it being a nuclear bomb and all, the radiation the shockwave carried would have been enough to toast more than the helicopter, right? Guess what? Not only does Ryan walk away from the wreckage, he then proceeds to enter Boston and make a cell phone call!!! I kid you not! The stench of BS in the air was so thick I had to rub my eyes as well as hold my nose.
Won't even watch it on HBO.
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