''The Siege'' is a 1998 American
action
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
thriller film directed by
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick (born October 8, 1952) is an American filmmaker and producer of film and television. He has worked primarily in the comedy drama and historical drama, epic historical film genres, including ''About Last Night (1986 film), About L ...
. The film is about a fictional situation in which
terrorist cells have made several attacks in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The film stars
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has been described as an actor who reconfigured "the concept of classic movie stardom". Throughout his career spanning over four decades, Washington ha ...
,
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a British Academy Film Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominat ...
,
Tony Shalhoub
Anthony Marc Shalhoub ( ; born October 9, 1953), is an American actor. His accolades include five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award nomination.
He played Adrian Monk in the USA Net ...
, and
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...
.
Plot
FBI Special Agent Anthony Hubbard and his
Lebanese American
Lebanese Americans ( ar, أمريكيون لبنانيون) are Americans of Lebanese descent. This includes both those who are native to the United States of America, as well as immigrants from Lebanon.
Lebanese Americans comprise 0.79% of the ...
partner Frank Haddad intervene at the hijacking of a bus fully loaded with passengers, which contains an
explosive device
An explosive device is a device that relies on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide a violent release of energy.
Applications of explosive devices include:
*Building implosion (demolition)
* Excavation
*Explosive forming
...
. The bomb turns out to be a paint bomb and the terrorists escape. The FBI receives demands to release Sheikh Ahmed bin Talal, a suspect in an earlier bombing. Hubbard eventually comes into conflict with
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
operative Elise Kraft as he takes a terrorist suspect into custody and arrests Kraft. Later, another terrorist threat is made and a
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...
bus is bombed. FBI captures a man named Samir Nazhde, who admits to signing the visa application of one of the suicide bombers in the course of signing many applications for student visas in his job as a lecturer. However, Kraft insists that Samir is not a terrorist and that his continued freedom is vital to the investigation.
The terrorist incidents escalate with the bombing of a bus and a crowded theater and hostage-situation at an elementary school, and culminate in the destruction of One Federal Plaza, the location of the FBI's New York City field office, with over 600 casualties. In spite of objections, the
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
declares
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
and the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's
101st Airborne Division
The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...
, under
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
William Devereaux, occupies and seals off Brooklyn in an effort to find the remaining terrorist cells. Subsequently, all young men of Arab descent, including Haddad's son Frank Jr., are rounded up and detained in
Downing Stadium
Downing Stadium, previously known as Triborough Stadium and Randall's Island Stadium, was a 22,000-seat stadium in New York City. It was renamed Downing Stadium in 1955 after John J. Downing, a director at the New York City Department of Parks a ...
. Haddad resigns in outrage. New Yorkers stage violent demonstrations against the Army and the profiling of the Arabs; the Army fights to maintain control. There are reports of Army killings.
Hubbard and Kraft, now revealed to be an intelligence operative named Sharon Bridger, continue their investigation and capture a suspect, Tariq Husseini. Devereaux's men torture and kill Husseini in the course of the interrogation. Afterward, Bridger tells Hubbard that Husseini revealed nothing of value because of the principle of
compartmentalized information. Sickened, she finally admits that she herself provided training and support to militants opposed to
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
'
s regime, working with Samir to recruit and train the followers of the Sheikh. After the U.S. cut their funding and left them exposed, she took pity on the few of them who had not yet been slaughtered by Hussein's forces, and arranged for them to escape to the United States, ultimately leading to the present situation as they turn their bomb making and covert skills on the country that now holds their leader. She and Hubbard compel Samir to arrange a meeting with the final terrorist cell. Hubbard convinces Haddad to return to the FBI.
A multi-ethnic peace march demonstrates against the occupation of Brooklyn. As the march is getting under way Hubbard and Haddad arrive at the meeting place, but Bridger and Samir have already left. Samir reveals to Bridger that he constitutes the final cell while in another sense he says, "there will never be a last cell." He straps a bomb to his body which he intends to detonate among the marchers. Hubbard and Haddad arrive in time to prevent him from leaving but Samir shoots Bridger in the stomach as she struggles to stop him. Hubbard and Haddad kill Samir but despite their best efforts the pair can only watch as Bridger succumbs to her wound after managing to recite certain lines of the second half of the
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
and concluding with "
Inshallah
''In sha'Allah'' (; ar, إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ, ʾIn shāʾ Allāh ), also spelled In shaa Allah, InshAllah, Insya Allah and İnşAllah is an Arabic language expression meaning "if god wills" or "god willing". It was mentioned i ...
" – the Arabic phrase "God Willing".
Hubbard, Haddad, and their team raid Devereaux's headquarters to make an arrest for the torture and murder of Husseini. Deveraux insists that under the
War Powers Resolution
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) () is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an ...
the authority vested in himself by the President supersedes that of the court which issued the
arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property.
Canada
Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...
. He then commands his soldiers to aim their assault rifles at the agents, resulting in a
Mexican standoff. Hubbard reminds Devereaux that the civil liberties and human rights which he took from Husseini are what all his predecessors have fought and died for. Devereaux finally submits and is arrested. Martial law ends and the detainees, including Haddad's son, are given their freedom.
Cast
*
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has been described as an actor who reconfigured "the concept of classic movie stardom". Throughout his career spanning over four decades, Washington ha ...
as
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
Assistant
Special Agent in Charge Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard
*
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a British Academy Film Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominat ...
as
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
Operative Sharon Bridger / Elise Kraft
*
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...
as
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
Bill Devereaux
*
Tony Shalhoub
Anthony Marc Shalhoub ( ; born October 9, 1953), is an American actor. His accolades include five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award nomination.
He played Adrian Monk in the USA Net ...
as
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
Special Agent Frank Haddad
*
Aasif Mandvi
Aasif Hakim Mandviwala (born March 5, 1966), known professionally as Aasif Mandvi (, ), is a British-American actor, comedian and author. He was a correspondent on ''The Daily Show'' from 2006 to 2017. Mandvi's other television work includes the ...
as Khalil Saleh
* Amro Salama as Tariq Husseini
*
Sami Bouajila
Sami Bouajila (born 26 May 1966) is a French actor who has won two César Awards. Bouajila has worked and acted in two Oscar nominated films ('' Days of Glory'' and '' Outside the Law''), both directed by director Rachid Bouchareb.
Early life
B ...
as Samir Nazhde
* Ahmed Ben Larby as Sheik Akhmed Bin Talal
* Lianna Pai as FBI Agent Tina Osu
*
Mark Valley as FBI Agent Mike Johanssen
*
David Proval
David Aaron Proval (born May 20, 1942) is an American actor, known for his roles as Tony DeVienazo in the Martin Scorsese film ''Mean Streets'' (1973), Snooze in ''The Shawshank Redemption'' (1994), Siegfried in ''Four Rooms'' (1995) and as Rich ...
as FBI Agent Danny Sussman
*
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick (born December 31, 1962) is an American actor and musician. He is best known for playing Cedric Daniels in ''The Wire'' (2002–2008), Phillip Broyles in ''Fringe'' (2008–2013), and Chief Irvin Irving in '' Bosch'' (2014–2020) ...
as FBI Agent Floyd Rose
*
Lisa Lynn Masters as Reporter
Reception
Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
awards the film a score of 44% based on 62 reviews. The site's consensus states: "An exciting, well-paced action film." Audiences polled by
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film 2 stars out of four, writing that director Edward Zwick does a good job with crowd scenes, but criticizing it as clumsy.
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...
won the
Golden Raspberry Award
The Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards) is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic under-achievements. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, ...
for Worst Actor for his performances in this film, ''
Armageddon
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...
'', and ''
Mercury Rising
''Mercury Rising'' is a 1998 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Harold Becker, the movie is based on Ryne Douglas Pearson's 1996 novel originally published as ''Simple Simon'', which was the worki ...
''.
Box office
The film grossed $40,981,289 in North America and $75,691,623 in other territories on a budget of $70 million. In the film's second week, ''The Siege'' showed the teaser trailer for ''
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace''.
Controversy
When the film opened, the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) states that it is "the largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States." According to its webpage it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities ...
came out against the film. Its spokesman Hussein Ibish said "''The Siege'' is extremely offensive. It's beyond offensive. We're used to offensive, that's become a daily thing. This is actually dangerous." He thought it was "Insidious and incendiary" because it "reinforces stereotypes that lead to
hate crime
A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...
s." Ibish acknowledged that Arab terrorists did, in fact,
bomb the World Trade Center in 1993, but said that Arab and Islamic groups are upset by "the very strong equation between Muslim religious practices and terrorism. ...
hanks to this filmEvery time someone goes through
the Muslim ablution, the ritual washing of hands everybody does before
they pray five times a day, that image is the announcement to the viewer of the presence of violence." Echoing such criticism, the
Council on American–Islamic Relations
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media relations, civic enga ...
protested the insinuation that "Muslims have total disregard for human life." The groups were "faxing and calling news organizations on a regular basis" to voice their concerns.
Director
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick (born October 8, 1952) is an American filmmaker and producer of film and television. He has worked primarily in the comedy drama and historical drama, epic historical film genres, including ''About Last Night (1986 film), About L ...
had met with Arab Americans, who suggested that the story be changed to mirror the aftermath of the
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-government extremists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry N ...
, when Arabs were immediately assumed responsible. This idea was rejected. Zwick noted that ''The Siege''s villains also include members of the U.S. government, and dismissed the criticism, saying:
In a September 2007 interview, screenwriter
Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as th ...
attributed the film's failure at the box office to Muslim and Arab protests at theaters playing the film, but also claimed that it was the most rented movie in America after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
.
Scholar
Moustafa Bayoumi
Moustafa Bayoumi (born 1966) is an American writer, journalist, and professor. He is of Egyptian descent. He is based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
Biography
Moustafa Bayo ...
has also critiqued the racialization of Arabs in the film and suggests it is indicative of an emerging sub-genre defined by "the notion of African-American leadership of the Arab world, intertwined with friendship with it."
[Bayoumi, Moustafa.]
The Race is On
" ''Middle East Report,'' March 10, 2010. Accessed on January 13, 2022.
Scholar Alexandra Campbell quoted from former
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
captive
Tarek Dergoul
Tarek Dergoul is a citizen of the United Kingdom of Moroccan origin who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
He spent six or seven months in US custody in Afghanistan, prior to his arr ...
when she compared the fictional demonization and extrajudicial abuse of Muslims in the film and the abuse that Dergoul described in his first post-repatriation interview.
On July 12, 2006 the magazine ''
Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
'' provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantánamo detainees.
Yunis Abdurrahman Shokuri was one of the detainees profiled. According to the article, his transcript contained the following comment:
References
External links
*
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Siege, The
1998 films
1998 action thriller films
American action thriller films
American political thriller films
1990s English-language films
Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Films about the United States Army
Films set in New York City
Films about race and ethnicity
Films about terrorism in the United States
Films about jihadism
20th Century Fox films
Films directed by Edward Zwick
Films produced by Lynda Obst
Golden Raspberry Award winning films
Films scored by Graeme Revell
1990s American films