The Patriot Act: 'Civic Duty' doesn't belong on watch list
[author:summermonica Public time:May 4, 2007] |
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Insecurity in the homeland propels "Civic Duty," an unstartling thriller for fans of the Patriot Act. Issues of masculinity, insanity and national security interlock for an accountant with anger-management problems.
When you're a laid-off accountant who looks out your window too often and watches too much TV news, you call the FBI.
But first you do some citizen surveillance. The tagline for "Civic Duty" asks "Are You Doing Yours?" Terry Allen (Peter Krause, from HBO's "Six Feet Under") profiles his new neighbor, Gabe Hassan (Egyptian star Khaled Abol Naga), as a terrorist after finding envelopes from Sons of Benevolence in his garbage and chemical beakers in his kitchen. Trailing him around a nameless city, Terry spots him taking all the blank-deposit envelopes from an ATM.
Is Gabe getting a scholarship from an Islamic charity to get his master's degree in environmental studies while working at a photocopy shop? Or is there something more to his unfurnished apartment, 3 a.m. trip to the Dumpster, exclusive contact with Middle Eastern males, pay-phone usage and expensive rental car?
FBI agent Hillary (Richard Schiff, from TV's "The West Wing") is more wary of Terry committing a hate crime than Gabe going jihad. Terry's wife, Marla (Kari Matchett, from "24" and "Invasion"), rolls her eyes at all his spying. Worry about getting that mortgage loan so we can buy our first home, she scolds him. "Why do you insist on making this our problem?"
In his debut screenplay, Andrew Joiner sets up Marla as a tolerant liberal blind to terror on the homefront. In a twist on "Rear Window," she, not voyeur Terry, is the photographer. A blond from the Alfred Hitchcock school, she emasculates her husband and moves out. "You like to stare at me all day," taunts Gabe. "If you prefer men, you should just tell her [Marla], man." Later, he calls Terry a coward to his face.
Canadian director Jeff Renfroe builds only off-the-shelf suspense as Terry's suspicions increase. The apparent innocence of the alleged terrorist is a by-the-book exercise in uncertainty. "Civic Duty" reaches a flash point in a rhetorical faceoff. Gabe poses this hypothetical: "What would you do if your wife was taken away from you, while she was cooking your dinner, by a Tomahawk missile?" "I'm not my country," retorts Terry.
"Civic Duty" brings to mind "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" (1939), with Edward G. Robinson. "Nazi spies in America? That's got nothing to do with me!" insisted Marla's counterpart in that movie's poster. After seeing that Warner Bros. drama, a Glencoe woman alerted the FBI about a suspicious German and triggered an eight-month investigation of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Maybe "Civic Duty" will prompt tips, too.
Source: http://www.msn.com
Printed From:http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200705/1178295640.html
Source:Free Press Release
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