Via: Tuned In
There is nothing very special about Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden as a TV movie. But its timing–marking Barack Obama‘s highest-profile military achievement the Sunday before an election–makes it impossible to discuss only as a TV movie. You can talk about its production (TV-flick-corny) or its version of history (unexceptionable), but the fact remains that on Nov. 4, National Geographic Channel is not airing Salt Lake City Rescue: The 2002 Olympics Story. Figuring out the timing is an exercise in mind-reading, but the movie is clearly not designed to hurt the President. Producer Harvey Weinstein is a prominent Democratic donor, and there were reports that the film had been edited to make Obama’s role in the decision more prominent. On the other hand, National Geographic is a cable channel that wants ratings, and there is a good chance that, were this movie airing a week later, you and I–and many of its critics–would not be giving it any attention at all. (The scheduling also puts the movie out ahead of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, which was specifically pushed back to be released after the election.) It’s at least a good publicity move, because in itself the movie is at best a competent, bland docudrama, mixing file footage with re-enactments and familiar news accounts with just enough behind-the-scenes character conflict to spike a little drama into the docu. In essence, Seal Team Six plays like a slightly longer, much cheesier version of a Homeland episode. After an interrogation prologue set in 2002–reminding us that the hunt didn’t begin with Obama’s inauguration–it jumps forward to 2010, when the CIA picks up new intel on Bin Laden’s location in Pakistan. Our focus at the agency is Vivian Hollins (Kathleen Robertson), who’s a sort of Carrie Mathison minus the bipolar disorder and self-destructiveness. “Being obsessed with a target is like having a one-way affair,” she tells us in one of several confessionals to the camera. “It’s secret and you can’t stop thinking about him, but you’re always alone.” Meanwhile,
Read full story at: Tuned In
Posted: November 2nd, 2012
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