3 out of 5

Director: Edward Zwick

Oh, Zwicky, you love your serious films. But the Siege isnt bad, for what it is. Edward Zwick, director of Glory and Blood Diamond, is a master of balance. He takes fairly complicated moral themes and props them up on the big screen with Hollywood names and budgets. It stops a few steps short of being too slick or pandering, but its still far from epic, which rates average for the majority of his films. Such is the case with The Siege – in which FBI prettyboy Denzel Washington starts uncovering terrorist cells in New York and stumbles across a grey territory of CIA and government support for strange people. But when the targets start piling up, martial law is declared, led by scary general Bruce Willis, who employs the dirty tactics of war to make the streets safe. Heavy, and anyone whos lived through some scary time with a foreign threat will find something surpringly close to the truth in events here portrayed. What works: Zwick has an eye for sets, and doesnt shoot with the heavy-handedness of, say, Michael Bay. The roles are big names but are generally understated (though he can only get Willis to truly drop his Willis shtick for a couple scenes) and the plot doesnt shy away from setting up some questions. But Zwick also knows how to get a budget, which means making a bad guy (the Willis character starts morally grey but then soon a twist makes him accessibly evil) and making sure the audience understands the heft with overused chanting music (…in every Zwick film). The Siege is an interesting plot and concept, but it cant fully commit, and thus never feels as scary as it should.