|
"Civic Duty," directed by Jeff Renfroe,
written by Andrew Joiner, starring Peter Krause, Kari Matchett, Khaled
Abol Naga, and Peter Schiff.
It’s not too long after 9/11. Because of a failing
economy, accountant Terry Allen (Peter Krause), a bland, white guy, loses
his job as an accountant for a large corporation. Coincidently, on the
same day the Homeland Security Advisory System is raised to Orange.
Everywhere signs abound advising people to report anything suspicious,
while Fox and CNN broadcast Bush’s terrorist warnings and the
ever-changing Homeland Security Advisories.
Terry’s normally upbeat wife, Marie (Kari Mattchett),
now hassles him about the new house they were in the middle of buying and
complains about bills. One sleepless night, Allen peeks out his apartment
window. He sees the new tenant, Gabe Hassan (Egyptian actor Khaled Abol
Naga), dumping a huge trash-bag of garbage. Suspicious!
As the days go on, not only does Allen suspect his
neighbor of being a terrorist, he believes the guy is coming on to his
wife. One day, he spies several men, who also appear to be Middle
Eastern, enter Gabe’s apartment, carrying small boxes. He can’t just sit
there and let whatever happens happen, so he calls the FBI. Agent Hillary
(a dour Richard Schiff, formerly of the "West Wing" TV series)
basically tells Allen to mind his own business.
But Allen decides to take things into his own hands.
Like an interrogator at Abu Ghraib or
Guantanamo, Allen imprisons Hassan in the guy's own
apartment and grills him at gunpoint.
Director Renfroe films the tragic final scenes between
the Allens, Hassan, Hillary, and a raft of armed FBI agents in
fast-paced, spliced shots as though the gripping action were seen in a
fractured mirror or through a huge kaleidoscope. He and writer Andrew
Joiner could easily have ended "Civic Duty" with a cliché.
Thankfully, they didn’t. Rather, it is unexpected.
But they did tack on a scene showing that Allen’s
ordeal had cracked through his fragile psyche, and he ends up in a
psychiatric facility.
In an interview last month in the San Francisco
Chronicle, actor Peter Krause said he believes that "the
corporate-led government has led us to the place where we’re at
now." Krause was involved in the rewrite of "Civic Duty"
and says that the film is a harsh indictment of fear mongering since
9/11, and he wants the media to "get called out for jerking the
public into a state of paranoia."
He said that he rewrote his character, Terry Allen,
from a "Bush-loving" loyal to that of a bipartisan average guy
who trusts the media and politicians. He feels that, though six years
have passed since 9/11, the government reaction to recent thwarted
terrorist plots and the Virginia Tech shooting is an example that repeats
a post-9/11 message: "Keep an eye on our citizens. They may be
dangerous." He hopes "Civic Duty" will make people ask
questions.
During this interview, Krause seemed to have an
inflated idea that his film is on a par with Michael Moore’s, or that he
and Renfroe would be marginalized as left-wing propagandists. Not even
close.
In the first place, Renfroe’s film is fiction, and
unfortunately, judging by the box office take since it opened, compared
to Moore’s documentaries and Oliver Stone’s fictional films, "Civic
Duty" is a dud.
Yet, "Civic Duty" does raise issues that
aren’t usually discussed in popular media. It makes us aware that
corporations manipulate us through media in bed with the U.S. government.
Our government wants people to be fearful and suspicious—while drums beat
for Iran as they did for Iraq.
|