It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This movie, dealing with the governments rather totalitarian reaction to Muslim terrorism taking place in NYC and other parts of the country, virtually rounding up the guilty and innocent and imprisoning them, was ahead of it's time. Is there anyone who couldn't see this happening today? Decent, but when watched today, creepy.

Right after the end of the Cold War, screenwriters were faced with a serious problem--what to do now that we don't have the "evil empire" to kick around anymore? It is clear that the new bad guy in films, the guy we love to hate, is the terrorist. Whether a foreigner (as in Die Hard, True Lies or Executive Decision) or homegrown (as in the Rock or Eraser) the terrorist has become the new guy we love to hate, and has provided viewers with a new spin on an old genre. The urban terrorist films are essentially westerns without the horses.As in all genre films, the problem for the director is to create a work of art out of the conventions of the genre and the inventions of the director. In The Siege, Edward Zwick (Legends of the Fall, Glory, Courage Under Fire) follows the conventions of the genre fairly closely, but manages to throw in enough creative inventions to make the ride worthwhile.Denzel Washington plays FBI agent Hubbard, a dedicated law enforcement officer committed to tracking down the terrorists who are wreaking havoc in New York City. In this task he is assisted by Frank, a Lebanese-American FBI agent (wonderfully played by Tony Salhoub). The FBI is trying to track down Arab-American terrorists in the city, and along the way gets occasional assistance, and frequent interference, from representatives of the CIA (Annette Benning plays agent Bridger) and the US army (Bruce Willis plays General Deveraux).The plot follows a standard formula but has enough innovative twists to make it engaging. Denzel Washington is playing a character we have met before. His character here is quite similar to the true-blue character he played in Crimson Tide. Bruce Willis's rendering of General Deveraux is good, but the character is pretty one-dimensional. Annette Benning's character brings some of the innovative twists to the plot, and Benning plays the part well. The real scene-stealer though is Tony Salhoub as Hubbard's right hand man, Frank. Salhoub gets all of the best lines and provides some interesting comic relief at key points. Salhoub also helps us avoid some of the caricatures common in this kind of film. It is common in films like this to depict all Arabs and Arab-Americans as militant fanatics. While this type of character is depicted here, the fact that Frank is himself an Arab-American adds some interesting irony, and helps us move beyond overly simplistic stereotypes.What separates this film from some of the rest of this type is the plot twist that has the President declaring martial law and turning the reigns over to General Deveraux (who appears to be modeled on Oliver North). Arab-Americans are rounded up by the military in a scene that reminds one of the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. At points, viewers will find themselves somewhat unsure about who the bad guys really are.The Seige suffers at points from relying too heavily on formula. However, the performances and the more innovative plot twists make it worth a look. Perhaps more importantly, the film is worth seeing because it raises important questions about the U.S. role as police force for the world. Given our fear of terrorism, and the probable increase in terrorist activity in the world, the scenario depicted in The Seige is not all that implausible. Fear of the other can easily give way to fascism. If we get to a point where the only way to combat their terrorists is to unleash ours, God help us all.NOTE: I wrote this review when the movie first came out in 1998. Events of the past twenty years make the film eerily prescient.

Five years after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, this film came out ... supposing what would happen if radical Islamic terror became so frequent in New York City that the U.S. government would declare martial law there. Included in that scenario was the detention of Muslims in New York City ... along the same lines as the detention of persons of Japanese ancestry (including U.S. citizens) during World War II. Not so strangely, this movie and others along the same lines (ie., 1994's "True Lies") drew heavy criticism from the U.S. Muslim community for portraying the religion, as a whole, in a bad light. This criticism became so forceful as to make Hollywood "re-think" such movies. Example? The Tom Clancy novel, "The Sum of All Fears," dealt with Islamic terrorists. But when Hollywood got their hands on it in 2002, the Islamic terrorists were re-cast as Neo-Nazi terrorists for the movie."The Siege," however (major spoiler alert), had one component that infuriated the Muslim community ... namely the character Samir who, at first, was painted as a peaceful mainstream Muslim - but who later turned out to be the last member of his own domestic terror cell who, in theory, was granting student visas to other Muslims who were entering this country (only to become terrorists themselves). In short, Samir was the one kind of person that scares a lot of mainstream Muslims and all other persons, regardless of their religion -- a person who feigns the role of a moderate Muslim but, in reality, is a domestic terrorist.Just a personal historic tidbit. On S.E. Clinton Street in Portland, Oregon, there's a small mom & pop style grocery store that has been around for many years. But back during the early years of World War II, it was owned and operated by a Japanese-American family (Mr. Funitake, his wife, and their teenage son). My mother went to high school with the son. When the detention of persons with Japanese ancestry took place, government officials rounded up the Funitake family. Initially, they were scheduled to be detained in an internment facility with others of Japanese ancestry. But when these officials inspected the store (a store on the bottom floor with their living quarters on the 2nd floor), they found Japanese military documents, shortwave radio equipment, and an extensive collection of shipping manifest data - detailing all shipping into and out of the Port of Portland. In short, the Funitake family (at least Mr. & Mrs. Funitake) were Japanese spies.While this doesn't excuse the wholesale internment of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II, it does point out an equally painful fact ... that sometimes, the government hit "paydirt." And in this film, Samir is an example of that paydirt ... normally innocent-looking people who are in the United States with "ulterior motives" detrimental to the health/life of mainstream Americans of all origins/faiths. On top of that, you have to remember one of Samir's last comments ... that his terror cell was not the "last" terror cell.So, all this leaves people in an ethical quandary. On one hand, you have the American mindset that tells you internment of people based on ethnic origins and/or religion is wrong. But on the other hand, you have to ask yourselves how many lives have been spared by "finding" this paydirt. Which is the "greater good?" Surely, the Funitake family wasn't alone - that there were other Japanese spies on U.S. soil during WWII. And just as surely, peaceful appearances among our nation's Muslims can be deceiving - at least sometimes. It's a tough nut to crack and, hopefully, our nation will figure out "how" to crack it without too much collateral damage.Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Bruce Willis played their roles in a spectacular manner. But kudos goes out to Sami Bouajila (Samir) for his portrayal of the person "believed" to be peaceful who turned out to be a domestic terrorist. And special kudos go out to Tony Shalhoub who played Denzel Washington's FBI partner (of Middle-Eastern descent) ... whose own son becomes a victim of the detention. This would be a tough topic for any movie to handle in today's world ... but it was handled well in this pre-911 film.

After the abduction by the US military of an Islamic religious leader, New York City becomes the target of escalating terrorist attacks. Anthony Hubbard, the head of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Task Force in New York, teams up with CIA operative Elise Kraft to hunt down the terrorist cells responsible for the attacks. As the bombings continue, the US government responds by declaring martial law, sending US troops, led by Gen. Devereaux, into the streets of New York City.....Its a topical film for sure, and it was made before the tragedy in New York, and for fans of the film, its a good job, because there is no way it would me made today, it's just too close to those events.But regardless of its political message, and its patriotism, it's just too dull in some places, and even though Washington is as good as ever, and Willis plays a convincing hate filled General, it just doesn't deter you away from the blandness of the outcome.Plus the fact that after the visually stunning scene with the bus, it's as if Fox has said to the producers 'look guys, you've had your big key scene, any other incidents with the film will be cutaways, or a noise in the background', and that is just what happens.And Benning is totally miscast in this, whenever she utters anything specific to her job, or becomes authoritative, the film verges on parody.But its worth watching for its message about xenophobia, the impressive set piece, and of course, Washington.Good, but bland....