Dirty War [to show on PBS this coming week]

PBS ^ | February 19, 2005

[TomGuy]

Dirty War



In an unprecedented arrangement, three provocative films from Home Box Office will be distributed through PBS for broadcast television following their HBO premiere, announced jointly today by Chris Albrecht, chairman and CEO, Home Box Office, and Pat Mitchell, president and CEO, PBS. In addition, HBO and PBS member station WETA Washington, D.C., will co-produce, along with the Council on Foreign Relations, related panel discussions to follow each film on PBS, featuring leading experts and moderated by noted journalist Jeff Greenfield, to follow each film on PBS.

"These movies address three of the most important issues of the 21st century, including nuclear terrorism, global AIDS and genocide in Africa," said Albrecht. "We are pleased to expand the audience for these extraordinary films by offering them to PBS viewers, and we're proud to help illuminate each subject with discussions by leading experts in those fields."

Noted Mitchell, "PBS' mandate is to foster an engaged, informed citizenry through content that offers insight and sparks meaningful dialogue. These films do just that, and we are pleased to partner with HBO to extend the value of the films through televised panel discussions of these critical global issues. As the nation's largest public service broadcaster, reaching nearly every household in America, we're proud to present these important films on PBS and allow them to reach an even wider audience."

Colin Callender, president of HBO Films, added, "We are always looking for innovative ways to bring HBO Films to a wider audience. Along with our successful ventures into theatrical release, this partnership with PBS is a bold and exciting way of doing that."

The first film, DIRTY WAR, tells the fictional story of a radiological "dirty bomb" attack on central London and debuts Monday, January 24 on HBO. DIRTY WAR is scheduled for Wednesday, February, 23 on PBS. Directed by Dan Percival who wrote the screenplay with Lizzie Mickery, this HBO Films/BBC Films production is based on extensive research by the BBC factual department and asks the questions: Are our emergency services fully prepared for a nuclear attack? How much does the public have a right to know?

The PBS presentation of DIRTY WAR in February will be followed by a half-hour panel discussion with experts in homeland security, emergency preparedness, nuclear weapons and terrorism.

[TomGuy]

Check local PBS for schedule and times.

OETA (Oklahoma) is showing
08:00 pm 2/23/05 CST
12:00 am 2/24/05 CST
03:00 am 2/24/05 CST

AETN (Arkansas) is showing
08:00 pm 2/23/05 CST

[dts32041]

I thought this was done in the d80's day after tomorrow or some such.

PBS HBO scaremongers, what are you going to do to stop it PBS/HBO.

I know the liberal answer to everything kumbaya and put the shackles of liberal slavery on.

[Churchillspirit]

Saw it a couple of weeks ago.

Good idea for a plot but was not impressed with the acting.

[skip_intro]

It's a good movie. I suspect that the reason for the panel discussion afterwords is to minimize the fact that the villains in the flick are members of the Religion of Peace.

[drt1]

IMO will only heighten whatever hysteria and fear there is. I don't think anyone who is not living in a closet is unaware of this possibility. Will watch just to confirm if for nothing else.

[Lx]

Great, more liberal academics discussing something they know nothing about.

PBS is doing this with the Auschwitz documentary they're showing over the next few weeks.

The round table adds NOTHING to the documentary

[dead]

It's a BBC production. I saw it a few weeks ago.

It was strictly about an attack and its aftermath. It was refreshingly free of any PC message. The jihadis were they bad guys, the cops and fireman were the good guys, the government officials were less than capable.

Pretty real world to me.

[skip_intro]

The round table adds NOTHING to the documentary

That's the beauty of using a DVR. I watched the Auschwitz documentary, then skipped over the talking head's discussion.

It's the only way to watch tv. I wish there was a similar product for talk radio.

[Lx]

I agree, I did the same thing. I think listening to their commentary actually lowers your IQ.

[10mm]

I've been looking for "Dirty War" on the BitTorrent indexers without any luck. Glad it's being broadcast on a station I receive over-the-air.

[Max in Utah]

"...the villains in the flick are members of the Religion of Peace."

GASP! Too much reality for the simple-minded viewing public!

< /sarcasm>

Seriously, this is much better than the screenwriting crime they perpetrated upon Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, wherein the pali terrorists were transformed into Nazis.

[llama hunter]

indeed, whilst the film Dirty War will not win any Oscars, it is a far more realistic and therefore frightening rendition of the nuclear bomb scenario in a crowded urban area than even the movie Sum of all Fears which got the Hollywood treatment and I found frustrating in parts, now maybe it was true to the book and my frustration should be directed at Clancy, however

I watched that movie Dirty War and it gave me heebeegeebees, esp as one who has visited London and know what traffic congestion is like on a good day (try being on top of an open double decker bus inhaling bus fumes whilst it takes 30 minutes to get down one street, the one Harrod's is on, name escapes me at present)

SPOILER

esp when they summarized the devastation in London after the fact, things you never think of like London becomes a virtual ghost town....

a good film for emergency preparedness teams to watch, I think, to fuel discussion....

[expatpat]

You mean The Religion of Murder.

[skip_intro]

You mean The Religion of Murder.

I didn't want to contradict Our President.

[TomGuy]

I've been looking for "Dirty War" on the BitTorrent indexers without any luck.

Me too. lol.

[CaptSkip]

panel discussions to follow each film on PBS, featuring leading experts and moderated by noted journalist Jeff Greenfield...

Yeah Mr.CNN will give us all warm fuzzys and help us understand the terrorists.

The movie is good...and troubling. It depicts the misunderstanding by many officials and almost all citizens of the science of a dirty bomb laced with alpha and gamma producing elements; first responders not being allowed to go in to the hot zone for more than a moment; dosimeters max-out quickly; an ever expanding hot-zone due to weather and having to relocate mobile decon units just as they are ready to process victims...total FUBAR.

[Dont Mention the War]

This movie was okay. More of a character study of inept bureaucrats and Islamist terrorist thought patterns than of the true effects of a dirty bomb.

If you have HBO On Demand, you can watch it right now.

[Dont Mention the War]

Update: "Dirty War" is in Last Chance mode on HBO On Demand. It will only be available through tomorrow night.

Also on regular digital cable:

Sunday, 2/20 - 11:30 AM HBO2 - EAST
Monday, 2/21 - 4:30 AM HBO2 - EAST

[B-Chan]

Dirty War was transmitted three times on HBO2 yesterday. I watched it and enjoyed it. The writer and director pull no punches -- the terrorists are Arab Moslems, and they kill Westerners out of sheer religious hatred. The bad guys are presented as real human beings, however, not cartoon villains, but despite their various humanizing characteristics they are never depicted sympathetically. The protagonists are similarly on the side of good but far from perfect. One is a nice-looking Muslim policewoman who takes her faith seriously but has no use for anybody who blows up civilians with bombs. Another is a fire brigade officer, Barry Corrigan, whose frustration with Whitehall's soft-pedaled civil defense preparations is similar to the way many of us feel about US Homeland Security's inept, overly-cautious style. The chief investigator who pursues th terrorists is a no-nonsense cop who isn't above using illegal methods (and even torture) to try and stop the bombers before it's too late. On the other hand, the female MP for Greater London, can only stand helplessly by as the happy-face "emergency planning" her Whitehall bosses compelled her to publicly support collapses under the weight to harsh reality.

The script is a bit speechy, but serviceable, and the performances typically English -- that is to say, good. There are a couple of truly exciting action scenes: One scene where SO19 (Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist special unit) takes down a terrorist suicide team is especially well-filmed -- very realistic, not romanticized at all, just a blunt depiction of bloody violence done in service to the State; another, showing the terrorists actually assembling the dirty bombs, will chill you to the marrow.

Dirty War is not a great movie, but for a TV film it's not bad. (The actress who plays the wife of firefighter Corrigan is also extremely attractive!) Rated R for brief full-frontal female nudity (decontamination shower scenes) and some rough language.

[B-Chan]

Correction: SO19 is the Firearms Force Squad of the London Metropolitan Police, not of Scotland Yard. Sorry for the mixup.