by Rich Elias, Nov 5, 1998

• 110 Minutes
• Rated R
• 2 Stars

It starts out OK. You've got F.B.I. agent Denzel Washington trying to stop Arab terrorists from blowing up bombs in New York City. First, it's a bus, then it's a Broadway theater packed with rich people, then a terrorist holds a class of school kids hostage. And so on. The tension mounts. The city is in crisis. And so on.

So who you gonna call? Bruce Willis. This time Bruce is in this terrific looking uniform because he's an Army general. Lots of ribbons, gold braid, and this cute Ranger beret that makes you want to salute him. His character is named Devereaux but you don't have to remember the name because, hey, it's Bruce, and you know that sooner or later Bruce is going to kick butt 'cause he's kicked butt in nine out of ten Bruce Willis movies. (There was one with Paul Newman in which he plays poker next to a naked woman but that doesn't count as a real Bruce Willis movie.)

Anyway, the city's in crisis and Hubbard can't stop these kamikaze Arabs whose idea of making a statement is to strap dynamite to their chests and blow themselves up in public places. This gets the government very nervous even though you could say, fine, let these nut cases blow themselves up. No one can stop them anyway, and sooner or later they're going to run out of terrorists.

No one in "The Siege" could follow this logic, especially not CIA agent Annette Bening who's an expert on Arab terrorism from her years in Beirut. She knows how these crazies think, what they want, even who they are, so naturally nobody takes anything she recommends seriously. Maybe it's because her name changes in the middle of the movie for no good reason except to make us suspect that there are wheels within wheels. If so, they aren't all moving in the same direction.

Eventually Denzel, the cops, Annette, and all kinds of important people are pulled into a meeting with a White House staffer who wants a solution. Bruce is there too, looking terrific in that snappy uniform. When somebody suggests calling in the army, Bruce gives this big speech about how the army is a broadsword, not a scalpel. What he means is that the kick butt guys he commands are going to kick butt. This surprises everyone in the room but nobody in the audience. I mean, what else does Bruce know how to do?

Bruce is trying to convince everyone that imposing martial law isn't a good idea, but nobody else has a clue, and when the advisor asks Bruce how long it would take his division to roll into New York, he says 12 hours max. I guess he figured his Hummers would make all the lights. Now, I've gone to lots of meetings in my career in which nobody had a clue about how to solve a problem, but that never stopped anybody from suggesting all kinds of crazy ideas. In this meeting, Bruce has the only idea, and it's genuinely crazy and he doesn't want them to do it, but the presidential advisor says OK and the next thing you know soldiers are herding Arabs into Yankee Stadium to keep an eye on them.

Before you can say "ACLU," Hubbard gets upset, just like any career FBI officer would do when the rights of minorities are trampled upon. And so "The Siege" ratchets up to its Big Idea. In one corner, representing the Constitution of the United States and two centuries of civil liberties is Denzel Washington. In the other corner, Bruce. It's not a fair match.

Denzel's got Annette on his side but he doesn't entirely trust her, especially after her name changes in the middle of the picture, and he's got a Lebanese-American FBI agent as his sidekick (Tony Shalhoub) but he's going up against Bruce's combat-ready troops and that terrific uniform (plus several nicely tailored suits Bruce gets to wear when he's not preparing to kick butt).

You don't pay much attention to how unfair it is to pit our most honored traditions against Bruce Willis because you're busy thinking about The Idea and wondering why director-screenwriter Edward Zwick makes such a big noise about it. Sure, we don't want the army on our block waving M-16s and rounding up Arabs. But isn't somebody in Washington controlling Bruce and his troops? Not that I noticed. Nobody else besides Denzel figures out that declaring martial law in New York City and then letting Bruce do whatever he wants is not exactly the best approach. Forget the rights issue. How about voter backlash in the next election?

Once Zwick ratchets up the conflict to show off The Idea, his script loses its brains. Like lots of other political thrillers, he figures out how to Make It Personal, meaning that Annette has a personal reason for trying to locate the Arab crazies and Bruce has a personal reason for trying to kill them all.

That's always a bad sign in political thrillers because it means the climax is going to be a big action scene that's Personal, like Malkovich versus Eastwood in "In the Line of Fire" and lots of other movies. The Big Idea fizzles out.

"The Siege" proves once again that casting is destiny. Bruce is going to kick butt no matter what Zwick thought his script was trying to prove. Bruce fans should note that he doesn't get much screen time and is never actually shown kicking butt, though because he's a general with a terrific uniform he's the prime mover of major butt kicking by the 10,000 men in his command. As for Denzel, he's a smart guy moving up in his organization because he believes in its mission until a crisis convinces him that you can't count on a hierarchical bureaucracy to do the right thing. You'd think Denzel would have gotten the message from "Crimson Tide" and "Courage Under Fire" and "Glory," the last two also directed by Zwick.

But no. "The Siege" has its moments, but it's a good example of what Roger Ebert calls an "idiot plot," in which everyone at key moments acts as stupidly as possible. The teenager who knows Michael Myers is in the house but goes in anyway. The pretty girl who thinks that the best place to hide from an attacker is to duck into a deserted basement instead of mixing in at the Elks dance one flight up. Or the President of the United States giving New York City to General Bruce Willis.