Vacation-at-Home #2 Days 4 & 5:

Okay, I’m about to watch the ABC-TV movie about the lead-up to 9/11 (“The Path to 9-11”). Supposedly the producers have been keeping it under wraps except for right-leaning focus groups and specially-selected worthies (for instance, I understand Rush Limbaugh was one of the fashionable few who was given an advance screening; he probably sent his housekeeper).

Even so, some of the people from the Clinton administration portrayed therein have still seen/heard about scenes where they’re shown saying and doing things they didn’t say or do, including Bill Clinton himself, who I saw diss the flick in a 5-second sound byte on TV. It was cool. I miss having him as our President, wandering pecker and all.

But I digress.

And people who haven’t seen the movie yet have already drawn their conclusions and shared them with anyone who’ll listen, but I’ve gotta give it an honest airing. I’m not gonna get involved in the back-and-forth regarding the flick’s financiers or its alleged agenda – I’m sure that’s well-covered territory in the proper blogoshpere – I’m just going to watch it and hold it to the same standards as I’d hold any film of equal ambition.

If it sucks ass early on, I’ll bail. Believe it.

Two hours in: I haven’t gotten to the alleged Clinton-bashing parts yet. So far, it’s a pretty good flick by TV-movie standards, although some scenes drag on or are extended through multiple cuts of the same images to pad out the running time.

Okay, I just hit the first “Clinton-bashing” part. The film implies Clinton was distracted from the pursuit of bin Laden (presumably among other important things) because of the Lewinski scandal. They imply it in kind of a cheap-shot way, but their device is dramatically sound and their point is one I’ve been making for years. Gee, who exactly was distracting the President with spurious investigation after spurious investigation throughout his entire term in office? That would be the GOP and their proxies. If anyone’s to blame for the President’s inability to focus – besides the President – it’s the people who prosecuted and funded the running campaign to keep him distracted! Fuckers. ...But so far, the movie is pretty good by docu-drama standards.

Ooh, Harvey Keitel’s character just sneered that Clinton was “pathetic.” That’s dirty pool! Keitel’s character, based on a real guy, John O'Neill, doesn’t make it out of the Twin Towers alive, so he’s not around to substantiate or refute any assertions his character makes, which makes him a perfect mouthpiece for any salacious dialogue the producers want to throw in.

Okay, another nasty snipe against the whole administration. I don’t know first-hand if the entire administration was indeed made up of cowards, but it seems a cheap shot to include said assertion stated by a sympathetic character as fact. It doesn’t advance the plot, only an agenda. I can see why people are pissed.

On the other hand, they cast the actress who played the President’s evil wife in the first couple seasons of “24” as Condi Rice. She makes it so easy to hate her! Now why would a right-winger like the one I’ve heard bankrolled this flick cast The Evil First Lady as Condi? This movie makes every American agent and agency look bad except Harvey Keitel and the guy playing Richard Clarke. And their ‘composite’ CIA-guy character, who can’t get anything done because all his higher-ups are idiots and/or hide-bound bureaucrats.

And the terrorists... The terrorists come off smelling like roses! They cast a good-looking, charming bunch of dudes as the highjackers. The Americans, almost without exception, come off as over-bureaucratized buffoons while the Bad Guys have their shit together throughout. Honestly, the way their planning and meeting and levels of security and stuff all came together so smoothly, the al qaeda goons came off like a bunch of suave middle-eastern 007s.

Actually, the way they portray the terrorists is the boldest, most un-rightwing thing about the movie. These are not the cartoon cut-out Jihadist caricatures (think “True Lies”), we’ve come to expect in our popular entertainment.

Wait a minute! They just made out like W was all hopped-up and focused on the Presidential Daily Briefing (“Bin Laden Determined to Fly Airplanes Into Buildings”) that he infamously blew off while on vacation. Now that smacks of pure politicking!

And poor, inept George Tenet better hope this movie isn’t how he’s remembered by future generations. Of all the impeccable doofuses upon whom Dumbleyou later bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tenet comes off the worst here.

Strictly as a film, I’ve got to give this flick a solid B. It’s just really well done. It loses points for scenes that stretch too long, and for bad guys portrayed as gallant warriors instead of the murderous motherfuckers they were. I don’t really need to see an even-handed portrayal of the villains of 9/11 yet. And maybe that’s the thing.

At last. The Thing:

In spite of all the pre-release hubbub earlier this year, it seems to me that “Flight 93” wasn’t made too soon after 9/11, nor was “World Trade Center.” They each concentrated on contained, specific aspects of that infamous day. And personal stories of courage are timeless. Especially in a nation so torn apart over the war in Iraq, we need all the bipartisan, patriotic, feel-good films Hollywood can produce (not that that seems to be a priority there.)

This seems like the movie that was done too soon, even if it had been more politically even-handed. To try to pass a comprehensive verdict only five years after such catastrophic events, the repercussions of which are ongoing, is pure folly. Most of the bureaucrats portrayed haven’t even retired and hit the whistleblower circuit yet.

As 9/11 stories go, this is the project that should have been given a while longer to get just right.