I can see why this direct rip-off from a season of '24' received so many negative reviews (although the rating average on IMDb still boggles me). This film engages in classic manipulation 101, by affirming and propagating some problematic cultural assumptions as facts, then blanketing over them with cinematic devices of distraction and sleight-of-hand.
The distractions are the A-list stars who attached their names to this film and the performances they give, without which the glaring holes and gaps in the plot and character motivations would be blatantly apparent. This is evidenced by a number of reviewers here who professed that they were on the "edge-of-their-seats" and captivated by this "thriller" despite the fact that they didn't understand why Younger did not seem to anticipate that his wife and children would be used as bargaining chips (when he supposedly anticipated almost everything else), or why Younger would turn himself in and risk the discovery of the bombs. These reviewers make the people who think that this film is somehow "anti-American" come across as slightly sophisticated, because I am fairly certain that actual military/contractor interrogators, who (should) understand that physical torture is a limited (and only one of many) interrogation technique, would find Jackson's character and his persistence on physical torture when it is clearly not working to be absurd and laughable. These reviewers are under the impression--manipulated by the film to think--that the film is about some moral reflection on whether torture can be justified if the situation is dire enough.
This is not what the film is about.
This film is about (melo)dramatizing certain assumptions and rendering them compelling and believable enough to be taken as fact. One such assumption is that only 'terrorists' face the possibility of torture in the name of US national security, which is a neat sleight-of-hand to obfuscate the fact that the majority of people who have actually been imprisoned and abused in the "War on Terror"--for example, in places like Abu-Graib, Guantanamo Bay, and other 'black sites'--are not guilty or even charged with any crimes related to 'terrorism.' But questions about how entire categories of people have become disposable in the name of security is blanketed over by the film which tells the audience that the only question we should be concerned about is whether we should prioritize morality or survival when confronted with the "ticking time-bomb" scenario. How did this 'scenario' come to be? It doesn't matter, the film tells us, because the antagonist is "Muslim"--as if that explains everything. What it explains is the other assumption the film affirms, that the writers and the producers hope no one will be conscious of, which is that all Muslims are 'suspect', and 'they' hate 'us'--an assumption that slides perfectly into a dominant cultural explanation for '9/11' and the subsequent 'War on Terror', as evidenced by some threads in the IMDb message forum where some posters have parroted all the tiresome rhetoric we've all heard countless times from government and military officials, talking sock puppets, and films.
There seems to be a 'commonsensical' notion floated by numerous reviews that something can be (cultural) 'propaganda' only if it can be easily recognized as such. If it's easily recognized as such, then it no longer fulfills that function. And the fact that so many people were entertained by this film without an inkling of its pedagogical function is a clear indication of the intensity of its manipulation.
The distractions are the A-list stars who attached their names to this film and the performances they give, without which the glaring holes and gaps in the plot and character motivations would be blatantly apparent. This is evidenced by a number of reviewers here who professed that they were on the "edge-of-their-seats" and captivated by this "thriller" despite the fact that they didn't understand why Younger did not seem to anticipate that his wife and children would be used as bargaining chips (when he supposedly anticipated almost everything else), or why Younger would turn himself in and risk the discovery of the bombs. These reviewers make the people who think that this film is somehow "anti-American" come across as slightly sophisticated, because I am fairly certain that actual military/contractor interrogators, who (should) understand that physical torture is a limited (and only one of many) interrogation technique, would find Jackson's character and his persistence on physical torture when it is clearly not working to be absurd and laughable. These reviewers are under the impression--manipulated by the film to think--that the film is about some moral reflection on whether torture can be justified if the situation is dire enough.
This is not what the film is about.
This film is about (melo)dramatizing certain assumptions and rendering them compelling and believable enough to be taken as fact. One such assumption is that only 'terrorists' face the possibility of torture in the name of US national security, which is a neat sleight-of-hand to obfuscate the fact that the majority of people who have actually been imprisoned and abused in the "War on Terror"--for example, in places like Abu-Graib, Guantanamo Bay, and other 'black sites'--are not guilty or even charged with any crimes related to 'terrorism.' But questions about how entire categories of people have become disposable in the name of security is blanketed over by the film which tells the audience that the only question we should be concerned about is whether we should prioritize morality or survival when confronted with the "ticking time-bomb" scenario. How did this 'scenario' come to be? It doesn't matter, the film tells us, because the antagonist is "Muslim"--as if that explains everything. What it explains is the other assumption the film affirms, that the writers and the producers hope no one will be conscious of, which is that all Muslims are 'suspect', and 'they' hate 'us'--an assumption that slides perfectly into a dominant cultural explanation for '9/11' and the subsequent 'War on Terror', as evidenced by some threads in the IMDb message forum where some posters have parroted all the tiresome rhetoric we've all heard countless times from government and military officials, talking sock puppets, and films.
There seems to be a 'commonsensical' notion floated by numerous reviews that something can be (cultural) 'propaganda' only if it can be easily recognized as such. If it's easily recognized as such, then it no longer fulfills that function. And the fact that so many people were entertained by this film without an inkling of its pedagogical function is a clear indication of the intensity of its manipulation.