Path to 911 is a snore of a movie

[Robbien]

or so says this reviewer.

By ROB OWEN
ABC's "The Path to 9/11" (8 p.m., EDT, Sunday and Monday), attempts to communicate the results of the 9/11 Commission report in a dramatic, relatable way for viewers. This isn't entertainment per se, but a way to tell the story of events that led up to that terrible day. At almost five hours and with no commercial interruptions, the miniseries asks a lot of patience on the part of viewers and gives too little in return.

By attempting to dramatize a report, the miniseries jumps all over the place. It would have been better to concentrate on a few or even one key figure. FBI counter-terrorism expert John O'Neil (Harvey Keitel) is the obvious choice. Not only is he involved in efforts to track the work of Osama bin Laden before 9/11, but after a falling out with the agency, he became head of security at the World Trade Center shortly before the attack.

Of all the characters in the film, O'Neil has the most remarkable story and the film sticks with him throughout, but it also veers off to follow other aspects of the 9/11 attacks that we've either seen dramatized before ("Flight 93") or are dramatized poorly here (the guy playing Dick Cheney is way too feeble and bears only a passing resemblance to the vice president).

Nine minutes into Sunday's first part of the miniseries, "Path to 9/11" jumps back to February 1993 and the first World Trade Center bombing. It continues hopping through time to examine significant events in the run-up to the 2001 attack.

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As the number of filmed dramatic projects related to 9/11 continues to grow, there's undoubtedly a greater need to offer context, which "Path to 9/11" attempts, but it does so in such a ham-fisted manner, it fails to tell an inherently dramatic story well.

much more . . .
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/12422

Most people don't know many of the people in DC. Without knowing the players this movie is going to lose viewers' interest real fast.

[Imagevision]

1. Is this the recently so-called edited version??

[Robbien]

2. I would say no

Wasn't only the uncut version distributed?

[blitzen]

3. how is it possible to portray Cheney as "too feeble"?

the man is the very essence of feeble, in every aspect

[jdadd]

4. Ha....

The character is probably too feeble to pick up a shotgun..:rofl:

[renate]

5. the few clips I've seen on KO and Joe Scarborough look pretty bad

All that muttering, and the hand-held camera... I'd get frustrated with watching it after an hour or two even if it were true, although if it were I'd probably try to stick with it to get a deeper understanding of what happened before 9/11.

Since it's not true, it just seems like a lot of work to watch--again, at least in those few clips. And the no commercial interruptions part might just backfire, because if sitting through a bad movie is hard enough, sitting through a long bad movie without a break is worse.

I can imagine people tuning in to see what all the fuss is about but tuning out pronto once they find out. E.g., didn't Keith say that Katie Couric's audience dropped by 25% between her first and second nights? Huge ratings because of all the hoopla and then.... meh.

I'm really glad to see this review and I hope it's followed by many more just like it. Wouldn't that be perfect if ABC wastes $30 million on a neocon-fest piece of crap that nobody watches AND getting busted for the lies?

[mikelewis]

6. O'neil wouldn't be the best choice...

...the irony of his death would lead to more conspiracy nuts.

CONSIDER THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE LATE former FBI agent John O'Neil. Stationed in Yemen, he was looking into possible links between Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole when he was pulled off the investigation for being "too aggressive," as the American ambassador to the Arab country put it at the time.

The real concern, conspiracy theorists allege, is that O'Neil knew too much about Al Qaeda's ties to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, arguably America's most important ally in the volatile Middle East. To protect its client and the flow of its oil, the U.S. government prevented a top investigator from nailing Bin Laden months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

O'Neill soon retired and, in a bizarre twist of fate, became head of security at the World Trade Center (a few weeks prior to 9/11).

On Sept. 10, 2001, O'Neil, who had been in the New York office of the FBI for seven years before his Yemen post, had dinner with an expert on terrorism devices who would quote him later as saying that "at least nothing happened on my watch." The next morning O'Neil died in the towers..."