Review of the movie Dirty War
Please post your review of the movie Dirty War here. Do Not review the plot or rehash the entire story. We have all seen the movie. Also do not worry about cinematic details, our concern here is only with the political issues the movie explores. I am interested in your reactions, your comments and your analysis of the premise and the view that the movide advances. Does the movie have a point of view on the subject? I am also particularly interested in your understanding of the point of view that Constable Habeebullah represents. This is an example of a bad review (NY Times you will need to register to access it) and this is an ok review.
17 Comments:
It is clear that the movie “Dirty War” has a point of view. One of the films main characters struggles to get the point across that first responders are evidently lacking the needed resources and political support to respond to potential threats including this dirty bomb scenario. What I find particularly interesting is the timing of this work. CNN today aired a segment about a national dirty bomb test scheduled for this week. After watching the segment, I am still questioning why fewer media outlets are covering this test. After searching online for a few minutes I stumbled across this article, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-03-terror-exercise_N.htm which outlines this controversy perfectly. In 2005, the government ran similar tests and the results were not published. One member of the House of Representatives, Norm Dicks, questioned why the public has not received these hidden results. I think his quote frames the issue perfectly. "Is it so sensitive because there was a lot of failures in this exercise," Dicks asked. "You know Katrina wasn't exactly a home run."
The apparent controversy of this current news and the film “Dirty War,” pertains to the amount of information the public should know about terrorist related tests and potential threats. There are many sides to this issue. It seems reasonable that the public should know if these tests are failures. Furthermore, one just has to watch Lou Dobb’s show on CNN to know that much of our port security is not even checked. Potential threats shown in this movie are difficult to prevent, but is it necessary to cause mass hysteria by alerting the public. This is a difficult issue which could only be compared to skating on thin ice. In truth, is its likely impossible to really know if we are prepared. Furthermore, if this causes a public uproar over the issues is there the potentially to cause more damage?
On the other hand, there is another perspective on this issue that which relates to the politics of fear. Many have argued that this nation’s current administration has schemed tactics to retain political power. We all know of the color-coded terror threat system which few people even bother to observe. Vice President Dick Chaney has mentioned the fact many times that there has not been any terrorist events on US soil since September 11, 2001. Furthermore, he claims that this lack of terrorist events is for reasons relating to this administrations active approach. Nevertheless, Iraq, for lack of a better word, is in a state of disorder and anti US sentiment appears at an all time high throughout the world, one can only question if we are any safer because of this governments approach to the war on terror.
I believe we should acknowledge our clear security flaws in this nation such as port security and recognize that dirty bombs are potential threats. Additionally, I do not think we should hide this information from the public, when emergency plans or tests utterly fail. As the House member alluded to, our nation does not have the greatest record dealing with large emergencies. Finally, we should be careful not to elevate terrorists into a position in which they influence our lives to this magnitude. Terrorists have already accomplished their goals when we change our lives because of potential threats that have not substantially materialized. We hear so much about how they (terrorists) “despise our freedoms,” which clearly ignores the root causes of why they loathe us, but if we acknowledge them to this extent, have we already placed them in a position in which they influence us? The movie accurately portrays this dilemma in a respectable manner. My only fear is that shows like this may cause such a fear in people that can be exploited by fear-mongering politicians.
I think the movie was a very accurate representation of what is possible and how many government agencies handle problems. While on one hand there are politicians who must save face to get re-elected, there are also bureaucrats who think they know best. The middle men here are the first responders and infrastructure. Their funding comes from one place, their procedures another, and neither of those two knows their job better than they do. Some information is ok to keep from people, but that causes conspiracy theories and upsets the public. Then again releasing too much information compromises any type of reactionary or preemptive acts. Money is wasted often by politicians, mismanaged by bureaucrats, and never handled by those who need it most.
The world has become so globalized (even though it could go much much further) that if every container, truck, or traveler were to be searched the economies would suffer greatly. In a world where GDP means everything, anything that would make the economy break is not an option. Aside from having devices, groups, and information smuggled in; a huge threat remains with what can be done at home. With the availability of chemicals and materials as well as the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet, possibilities are near endless for home grown terrorism. The movie also shows the reality of the world, there are no rules to war, everyone is target. The people are real, the ideas are real, and the threat is real. Freedom and security can go hand in hand but there must be a sacrifice made for the other to advance.
Constable Habeebullah represents the new age in the Middle East. An upcoming educated woman in a religion which had previously oppressed women. Still, she believes in her religion and her parents are proud of what she is doing with her life. She represents a new age for Islam, one in which not everyone is an infidel and it is ok to believe in a different religion. She also represents a fact, Muslims and non-Muslims can work together to remove or destroy terrorist cells around the world.
Keith Abrahamson's Review:
The HBO film, Dirty War, brings light to a very scary reality in today’s world that is often overlooked. TV shows, such as Fox’s 24, often portray unrealistic hero scenarios when it comes to fighting terrorists. Pop culture seems to think that one man can stop an entire group of religious fanatics from killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in an instant. Dirty War, however, takes a much more realistic standpoint. What happens when a dirty bomb actually succeeds? Are we prepared for it? How will the public react? Though the movie takes place across the Atlantic Ocean in London, it creates a scene that is eerily similar to any American metropolitan area. The writers of this film clearly do not feel that England is well prepared for an attack. Likewise, I believe that the United States is also ill prepared.
The movie starts out by addressing preparation. We see many city workers going through a simulation, however, it is entirely staged and doesn’t seem to prepare them well for an actual attack. As a viewer, this made me quite uneasy and brought up many questions. Why don’t I have a safety suit? Shouldn’t every American be equipped with one? Shouldn’t we be investing more intelligence and money into preparing for an actual attack, rather than just trying to prevent one? At the same time, however, at what point do you start living in a world of fear where you can’t go anywhere without being afraid of an attack?
In the beginning of the movie, we are also introduced to a number of terrorists who are preparing for the attack. These men are very passionate and are willing to die for their cause. The scariest thing is that the bomb that they make is very simple and was easily created in a basement in Britain. It makes me wonder why there haven’t been any terrorist attacks on the United States since 9/11. Security is a large issue in the United States and while airports are very well protected, ports create a huge threat since they are not checked nearly as thoroughly.
Once the bomb finally goes off, panic ensues. Everything that London prepared for suddenly gets thrown out the window. High level officials don’t know how to react because they don’t exactly know what they are dealing with. There is complete madness at ground zero and people are not calm and willing to cooperate. The reality is that in today’s world it is impossible to prepare for everything. Thanks to the internet, there is so much scientific information readily available to anyone who wants to find it. No longer can we only worry about countries who pose a great threat to our security, we must prepare for any crazy enthusiast who hates America, whether they live inside the nation’s borders or outside. It is a shame that Dirty War receives such little attention to the general public when its issues are at the forefront of Americans’ lives. The film truly makes viewers realize that terrorism is a real threat and that we are not nearly prepared enough for an attack.
Adam Lovitz
After watching “Dirty War,” then running through a thunderstorm to get back to my apartment, I had a pretty paranoid state of mind. I was on edge the whole movie, thinking how easy it is to create a bomb made with simple household chemicals. I thought about the places I am at besides a city which are usually heavily populated, such as sport arenas. Then I thought about a spray of chemicals washed over a sixty thousand crowd of drunk football fans. The chaos would be unimaginable.
Strikingly realistic, the movie proves that there is an incredible amount of options for terrorists to take and each type of attack calls for a different reaction. How do we plan for every attack? The government has the option of concealing certain information from the public in order to appease fear, or it has the option of creating a certain fear by implementing a series of plans for terrorist attacks. What does the balance have to be in order to make our daily lives safe, and to not interfere with our routines? The government, as seen in the movie, has the responsibility to keep citizens safe.
The movie made a fine point in the lack of communication between the government, the public, and the government with public safety officials. Public should communicate better to the local officials of suspicious activity, as we saw in the movie. The movie addressed the importance of the government working closely to public safety, because it is the fire companies and police that will deal with the emergency of an attack. The general public, besides knowing a basic routine of escape from a building, should always live day to day without fear. It is not our job to worry about such atrocities, and if we do live with this burden the terrorists have succeeded. It is the governments job, however, to ensure the safety of the citizens.
Shannon Dougherty:
I was surprised the most by the movie’s ability to portray the difficulties associated with terrorism preparation. In light of the movie, the amount of time any country’s government agencies could devote to terrorism preparation appears to be ineffective to counter the ways in which terrorists can wreak havoc on major cities worldwide. The movie portrayed limited resources of an ill-prepared response team. However, when considering an alternative, the question becomes, what is enough?
In researching the matter, I found a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that gave instructions for radiation emergency response preparation: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/. The report stressed the need for flexibility and the need to prepare for a range of possibilities. However, this advice appears overly vague and ineffective. Policy makers will doubtlessly be poorly prepared for every possible terrorist attack. Furthermore, any preparations they may make by purchasing the capital necessary to prepare for saving the city would be highly expensive, and could be seen as a misallocation of resources. To me, this movie portrayed the futility associated with terrorism preparation and prevention.
Both the movie and the CDC report stress the need for rapid response to any terrorism attack. However, as the movie portrays, such a report is difficult because of the chameleon nature of terrorism. The modes, means, and targets of attacks of terrorism are ever changing. Prior to 9/11, one may have thought that a small town in rural western Pennsylvania would have no need to fear the impact of terrorism. Yet, the crash of the third plane removed that sense of security.
In the movie, it was nearly impossible for the heads of the response teams to give instructions because they could not identify the agents used in the attack. The headquarters could identify high levels of radiation, but they had no knowledge of the presence of chemicals at the sites, or the rapid spread of the radiation. The inability of those in charge to respond in a timely manner to the attack seemed to cause major public panic and ultimately chaos.
The movie did a decent job of portraying many complications that arise during attacks of terrorism, such as limited resources, an ill-prepared response team, and the difficulties associated with inabilities to identify the agents used in the attack. Contemplation of alternative procedures, which could be implemented to minimize these obstacles, brings examiners into the vastly unknown area of terrorism. Terrorist attacks appear to be insurmountably diverse. The weapons any terrorist could use in the future are beyond the preparations of government agencies today. Global participation is needed to combat such destructive attacks. However, since America is unwilling to participate in any such cooperation, it seems as if we are sitting
“Dirty War” was a really informative movie, and seemed eerily accurate to me. Other TV shows portray emergency personnel heroes in a different light-that they’re always prepared, knowledgeable, and everything goes “just how they practiced”. The director was really trying to send the message that he/she doesn’t believe that many parts of the world are equipped and prepared to deal with a terrorist attack involving “dirty” chemical bombs. Maybe the director is also trying to make that suggestion that perhaps countries are spending too much on national defense and occupation in foreign countries instead of spending more money on emergency preparedness, firefighters, police, and other emergency aid units. It applies to the U.S., as we didn’t really seem equipped and prepared to deal with 9/11. Our firefighters weren’t prepared to work together on a large scale unit necessary to provide immediate aid to a large scale attack. “Dirty War” begins with a simulation of a dirty bomb attack in London. The simulation reveals real problems in the government’s ability and readiness to deal with a crisis like a dirty bomb. The movie does a pretty good job of showing the confusion, chaos, and destruction that would occur during and after a dirty bomb attack. The government in London is forced to take the blame for the chaos and disorder that resulted from the terrorist attack. “Dirty War” is, on the whole, a pretty entertaining movie. For anyone who watches the movie, it definitely raises a lot of questions. Are we prepared for a dirty bomb? Do we run emergency preparedness tests? How do the tests go-are they successful? Maybe countries should spend more time on preparing for how to handle a terrorist attack than trying to prevent them. It was also really scary to see these extremists that were so ready to die for their cause and what they believed in and how simple the bombs were and how easily they were made.
This movie sends a clear and very realistic message to what is and can happen in our world. The fact that it is that easy for a hanful of men to create such a deadly weapon is unsettling. The particular thing about "Dirty War", that is unlike many movies of its kind, is the fact that the bomb does detinate. It shows how the government failed, and thousands of people will lose their lives because of it. On the other hand though the film does show the government detroyed the second bommb that was set to go off.
The scary perception that the film portrays is the lack of info given to the public. Sure it's ok in the film because one it's a film, and second we know everything that is known by everyone. The disturbing fact is that if this was real, and as a normal non-government assosiated person, I would have no idea of what is going on. Further more it is unsettling to see how this government was not quite as prepared for the dirty bomb as they could have been. Now if people are living in fear, because the government fails to portray a sense of safeness to the public, the job of the terrorists is succeding. And if the terrorists succede this movie can very easily become a reality.
The film “Dirty War” does an excellent job showing what a terrorist attack using dirty bombs might be like. The film puts into perspectives many aspects that surround such types of attacks, from government preparedness or lack of it, the victims, the economy, etc..
I enjoyed the movie because it makes you think of the probability of such thing happening, and how would we, in general react to such an attack. The movie does have a point of view when it shows that governments are not taking seriously the ‘what if’s’. It’s true that we cannot live our lives in fear of such attacks, but the possibility of them is still very much present. Today, more than ever, the government, because of its responsibility to the people, must protect its people. Not by attacking or conquering those that have ‘different’ believes of how things should be done, but, by concentrating on its own geographical area and its own problems. It’s true that the world is global, and the talk of now a days is that we are all interconnected and dependent, but many of the actions (unilateral) taken by many governments, might not take into consideration all those who share this planet Earth, but instead, take into consideration only those interests that such governments consider important!
The movie actually seemed pretty realistic and touched upon some important issues and facts about terrorist attacks. the development of the attack was displayed well as it demonstrated the capacity of the terrorists as educated men with a historical perspetive on the present state of things. When I think about it, terrorism really doesn't surprise me at all. The west has exploited and neglected most of the world at some point in history. The middle east has been the only peripheral or semi peripheral region that has produced noteworthy militant response. The difference between the middle east and other exploited regions is that they were once unified and prosperous as a major region and that unity lives on through the Muslim faith. All of Africa never had such unification and religious standards. When an African nation fights for its people it is in consideration of a much smaller population because it is in regard of ethnicity not religion which transcends ethnicity. That is why central African nations aren't attacking France and the fact that genocide between social classes setup by imperial nations shows that the offenders aren't blaming the West for their problems, though they should be.
I thought it would good that they showed an elderly Islamic woman informing the police of the suspicious activity. I think tension between whites and Arabs is easing but there is still apprehension and it's important that the westerners understand most Arabs seek peaceful prosperous lives even with their disdain and frustration of western policy.
Even though the movie was hypothetical, displaying Thatchers priorities was an important subject. First of all, she obviously didn't beleive it would happen or completely underestimated its devastation. Parallel's to 9/11? The response training programs were publicity stunts and her focus on sustaining business and industry overshadowed the cost an actual attack would have on it. Problem is, if she had gotten the public all worked up over nothing she would've been nailed to the wall. This is where the media neglects and exploits the power given to them by the people and they should be partially to blame for leaders not being able to inform their people of possible dangers.
It really doesn't seem that difficult to pull off a dirty bomb attack, any number of suicide bombings in Europe could have been executed with a bio or chem bomb. Im surprised none of them were so. I would much rather be scared and safe than oblivious and dead.
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I like to think I am safe living in the Wealthy Northwest hemisphere. We spend the most money on security, and much of the time it does work. However, they say there is around a million people in the Arab world who would risk their lives to bring about harm to us infidels. The actions of the United States has created way more tension in the Middle East. Nations that affiliate themselves with us who are closer to the Middle East have carried the burden of the most recent terrorist attacks. The movie did a great job exploring the perspectives of terrorists, lawmakers, and law enforcers. As you can see the power did not rest in the hands of the law enforcers and the law makers of the almighty Great Britain but instead an implanted terrorist cell which consisted of 6 or 7 Egyptians, Syrians, etc. They get to choose what kind of attack to iniate and where to iniate it. All our government can do is to try to use our K-9's, wiretappers, non-discriminant racial profilers, metal dectors, and CIA's to try to spot out and track the actions of these people. We can follow these people around with our superior technology, but I do not think that we can track every sly and weapons smuggling technique of shady terrorists. When this fails, how do we prepare for such attacks? The movie showed that the government was clearly clueless as to what it should do. They didn't even know what kind of attack it was until well after thousands of people perished. Unprepared for such actions London could not decontaminate enough people of the harmful and contaegous biological materials in time. This dirty bomb attack was something new and completely different from the prior Spanish Train Bombings and the World Trade Center Airplane Attack. This goes to show that terrorists have a wide range of attacks it can carry out and the there are only so many things the Judeo-Christain world can do to prepare itself. You plug up one hole from leaking and another one will surely open up. These attacks cause democratic governments to react with haste in order to keep there people safe. When planes are you as instruments of terror well spend billions of dollars innovate cockpit doors, when Richard Reed has a bomb in his shoes we increase airport security and make everyone take their shoes off. The terrorist want us to drain our treasury, they know that even if we invade their countries and bring the fight back to them, they fight a guerilla warfare that makes the fight far more costly for the west than the east. Israelis deal with terrorist threats everyday, they survive. In order to not let the terrorist win we need to learn how to gather information better, have generalized emergency procedures which are most effective against the WORST kinds of attacks, and a rational defense budget.
Most muslim immigrants seem to follow the same trend of Mexican-Americans in the US Southwest. That is they live in isolated communities, that retain their own customes, values, and beleifs. Consequently cultural assimilation is halted for 2-3 generations. Poverty in these ghettos can produce local terrorist cells that are homegrown ex: much of the violence in France comes from Algerians who are French Citizens. Many people do realize they can make a better life for themselves and recognize that there is oppurtunity outside their walled in realms. Constable Habeebullah represents someone who sheds aside the stuborness of change and accepts that not everything conservative people in her culture say is true. This liberates her to pursue the dream of a better life which is indiscriminant towards all peoples.
While watching the movie Dirty War I felt a sense of fear. The movie does a great job of making the viewer feel like an attack of this style and magnitude is possible and perhaps the government is not prepared to defend something like this. The director does an amazing job of instilling a sense of reality to the movie. Unlike other Hollywood thrillers there is no narrow escape at the end of the movie. The conclusion of this movie is the bad guys winning. The terrorists end up successfully attacking down town London and the government has no way of containing the blast.
The movie brings back memories of September 11th. Although the style of attack was different it was also very similar. There were signs of an attack but at the same time no one thought it was actually going to happen. Both attacks were not only surprising but they were also devastating and no one knew how to handle the chaos that followed. The movie also made me think of how fortunate we are that an attack like this has not happened yet. However, it still puts the idea in the viewer’s head of how tragic an attack like this can be. It makes the government seem so unprepared and makes me think that maybe it isn’t possible for any government to be fully prepared. No matter how much money is invested in national and global security there will always be holes that terrorists will try to exploit.
The movie “Dirty Bomb” is a rude awakening for those who know nothing about the potential of a dirty bomb. I had never heard the term before and to find out what is possible is scary. As it turns out the Department of Homeland Security ran simulations similar to those ran in the movie from October 15 -19. The exercise is called Topoff 4 and was conducted in Arizona, Oregon, and Guam. More information on Topoff 4 can be found at The Department of Homeland Securities web site, www.dhs.gov.
The point of the movie that got the most of my attention was what the government decided to share with the public and what was kept secret. I understand that the government has to keep some things out of the public eye, but there is a fine line between keeping information secret for the security of the people and keeping information secret to mislead the people into thinking they are safe. I think they crossed that line in the movie. The government said the test went fine, and that they were prepared for an attack such as a dirty bomb.
I think that the movie depicted the chaos of the aftermath extremely well. Can you imagine an attack like that in New York City and trying to quarantine everyone in the surrounding area. The only thing on most people’s minds would be to get away, far away. Trying to keep them all there until they are clean would be very difficult. To date I haven’t seen any official press releases on Topoff 4. The Department of Homeland Security’s website doesn’t have any results. This only leads to speculation on how the testing went. I hope that our top officials are more prepared than those in the movie were depicted for all of our sake.
"Dirty War" takes a comprehensive look at a potential terrorist attack. It capitalizes on many people's worst fear-- a dirty attack in a populated place. It's a race to find and capture terrorists, while simultaneously showing the weak points of the British reaction team through practice drills that do nothing but expose flaws in the proposed plan.
For me, I was pretty much wide-eyed throughout the entire film. I think about all of the crowded places I go to... anywhere from campus on a weekday at noon to my home in Philadelphia, to sports arenas... the potential for an attack like in the film is so high.
Aside from the film, I really think the majority of today's media shares too much. I don't need (nor do I want) to know every single thing that is happening from strategic military standpoints overseas. I think it's inappropriate, and it isn't my place to be privy to much of the information the news shares. But, when it comes to something useful like the tests shown in this movie, something that could save hundreds of lives, the exposure is minimal. That was a real eye opening aspect of the movie for me-- the fact that London was so ill-prepared, and so horrifically uninformed.
Another eyeopener were the men behind the scenes who were responsible for making decisions post-detonation. Who would do that in real life? and what would they decide? It seemed terrible to watch, but maybe sectoring off city blocks like they did really WAS the best thing to do.
The movie has a very clear message-- governments are inadequately prepared for such situations. the new Prime Minister epitomizes this point and the government's stance... she meant well and genuinely wanted the best but was so far from having a grip on reality. Interestingly enough, I don't think Britain is at the same risk level for a dirty bomb as the US, but there is no way a film this direct would ever fly in the US. British film in general is much more in your face, especially with politics (like the other film we watched in class... the Trial of Tony Blair I think it was called). It's a shame, and I definitely wish more Americans were exposed to this film.
The only thing that I'm iffy about with this film is seeing the "other side" as it were... the terrorists in action. I feel like I would have liked it better if they would have spent more time focusing on the aftermath and not the beforehand.
The film Dirty War is shown from a political view point. It shows how the politicians would like to be able to operate at the beginning of the film, having drills to ensure that the public is safe, though they did not have enough equipment and most of the equipment that they had was faulty and was useless. There were also many problems which the system that was used and rather than trying to inform the public, they kept it from them because of the increased risk of attack if vulnerabilities were known; this was probably the best thing that the politicians did in the entire movie because the rest of the time they had no idea of what to do. This movie shows how many of the major cities of the world are ill-equipped for an emergency situation of that proportion and how most of the world would be effected by such a catastrophic event. It also seems as though the director was trying to show how a large amount of money is used for defense rather than for emergency operations. The film shows how they neither have the funding for the operations, nor the training to manage the panicking public and mass hysteria created by the explosion of the “dirty bomb”. Constable Habeebullah represents the general public, he demands having working equipment and enough of it, not to mention more realistic training for it and plans that will actually work with enough people to for the plan to be effective.
It seems extremely obvious that Dirty War has a view point which was an attempt to show the people of the Western World that all Muslims are not terrorist and our current set anti terror policies are not at the level to protect us from an actual attackl. The reason why I say this is primarily because in the movie, the director Daniel Precival shows how easily the radical sleeper cells coordinated with one another in order to make their Dirty. They simply transported the hazardous material that was used to make the bomb through an ordinary delivery truck, and then they constructed it in the basement of an typical one family house. This handful of fifteen people managed to construct such a hazardous bomb. If all Muslims were terrorist then we would have 1.2 billion people on this planet ready to construct dirty bombs and dentate them over the western world. Obviously, if that was the case, then the whole world have come to an end by now. In the movie the director stresses that all Muslims aren’t terrorist by introducing the audience to a female Pakistani Muslim detective who’s objective was to stop the dirty bomb form detonating, yet at the same time she considered this fight for her religion, yet this was not just another case for her, but an internal battle for her self conscious. A battle to reclaim her religion from the fundamentals who twist the meaning of the holy Quran.
In addition, it seems that Precival is attempting to show how any government would react to a real life terrorist attack. Only words that can describe it are…utter confusion, disorder and chaos. This was shown in the movie when the government knew they ere horribly under staffed and horribly prepared for an terrorist attack. When the attack took place the trained personals failed to contain the site of the attack which lead to further casualties. It seems that he successfully managed to depict an image to the audiences of how we must be politically aware of what our government is doing and to question all the outlets of media before setting outrageous foreign policies such as the ones the United States has recently established.
The movie "Dirty War" clearly has a point of view that terroristic attacks can be devastating and send the public into mass chaos. This movie attempts to strike fear into its viewers by suggesting that if there was an attack, the government would not be ready in nearly enough time. Also this movie suggests that the government does not have enough equipment or knowledge to handle an attack if one happened. This movie is very entertaining, it shows how acts of terrorism does not have to be planned by powerful groups but can be successful by a small group of people. This movie brings up the topic of how much the public should be allowed to know about potential terrorist hotspots or attacks. I believe that it is better to keep the public in the dark most ofthe time because it would cause a sense of paranoi that would spread fastly throughout the American public.
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