Unthinkable

So at work a few co-workers have been telling me I have to see this movie called “Unthinkable” with Samuel L. Jackson.  After I got home from the gym last night, I drank my protein shake and popped in the DVD and took a ride on the crazy train (Ozzy).  This was an unbelievable flick to watch and it had some serious actors for what seemed to be a direct to DVD film.  Here is the rundown; an everyday Joe, ex-military dude (Michael Sheen) has converted to Islam, send a video tape to the US Government stating he has planted 3 nuclear bombs in large metropolitan areas around the US.  These bombs are due to detonate in 4 days if his demands are not met.  It sounds like a season of 24 and if I had not put the DVD in myself I would have been looking for Jack Bauer to save the day.  However, we have Carrie-Anne Moss (Matrix) as Agent Brody FBI, who works Counter-Terrorism in LA (sounds like 24 again).  She is in charge of the LA field office and this guy is on her watch list. “Oh-Snap” this guys face is plastered all over every news channel on TV and they have zero answers.  Come to find out the military has already captured the dude and calls her team in under all this secret-squirrel scat.  But it gets better, enters “H” aka Sam Jackson who is a crazy/brutal interrogator, who has zero limits and seems willing to do anything to get answers…

This is one you have to see for yourself, the plot and story are excellent in the end it challenges your beliefs.  The story delves into all aspects of American versus Islamic beliefs and ideals.  It is not preachy and didn’t seem to take sides.  It was a look to e more at our beliefs as human.  Meaning we as Americans grow up believing one set of things, as people who live in other places around the world believe in different things.  It even goes into what freedom is and what it means to different people.  Sam Jackson’s character is like the devil’s advocate and Carrie-Anne Moss is like the most classic version of American thinking.  The story is fast and the movie doesn’t slow down.  As an ex-military person, they played the military as idiots and I hate that (though we o have our fare share of Dumas’s).

If you watch this movie you see everyone is playing a stereo type of some kind and it shows the flaw in all our thinking.  The terrorist dude (Mike Sheen) grew up in some middle-east country where his Dad worked at the embassy, he married a Muslim woman and converts to Islam and now he is a damn terrorist (stereo type).  Carrie-Anne Moss is a single White Female, no kids, no husband, no boyfriend (fine as hell) and married to her job.  Went to Harvard, studied law and works for the FBI, ensuring everything is done legally and correctly, she comes off as perfect (stereo type).  Sam Jackson is a wildcard, he is married to a Bosnian woman who was raped and her family was killed, they have 2 kids and seem to live a normal life, but he is crazy as “bat-scat” and so is she…

Unthinkable was released direct to DVD, June 14, 2010, rater R for crazy violence and language (MF’n Sam Jackson).  As usual the critic beat this film up saying things that only the well educate would think is poignant.  Directed by Gregor Jordan (Australian film director), Written by Oren Moverman (The Messenger [Academy Award Nominee]) and Peter Woodward(Actor/Writer/Director [Galen, Babylon5]), 97 minute runtime.  After you watch this movie ask yourself one thing, “Does the ends, justify the means?”