House of Eratosthenes

So on Wednesday I’m all bellyaching about how all the movies that are made nowadays, are made the same, because the young punks want them that way. And the young punks end up ripping themselves off, because the movies made just for them, end up being crap.

And I dissed xXx: State of the Union (2005). Only in passing, but I still felt kind of bad about it, because I really liked the first installment with Vin Diesel. Actually, I have it. Impulse purchase. And as far as the sequel goes, I hadn’t seen it all the way through. Enough snippets to to know what I was talking about, I thought. But only that; not a minute more. Didn’t seem fair.

So I popped it in, and after I was done watching it I was really impressed with something. It’s a “swashbuckler” movie, in the sense that there’s a plot to assissinate the President after the State of the Union address, and install the Secretary of Defense in his place. It’s up to the “swashbucklers” to try to stop it, just like Robin Hood stopping Prince John from deposing King Richard. Or the Musketeers stopping Cardinal Richelieu. Really, it’s a rehash of every swashbuckler film, with a fairly slim subplot involving political skullduggery, which in turn motivates the villain to get on with his shenanigans.

Here’s what impresses me. The political-skullduggery subplot is over-and-done-with in thirty-nine seconds. Amazing, huh? It is seldom mentioned after that, and substantially explored, not-at-all. So yeah, in one scene, you get to see what the movie is “about.” It’s a conversation between President Sanford, played by Peter Strauss, and his Secretary of Defense. Strauss is the “legitimate king” so to speak, obviously, and since the other fellow is played by Willem Dafoe, well, you just know that’s the bad guy. The time index is 58:25.

Pres. Sanford: George, I’m addressing the nation tonight. So what’s the hang-up on the military bill?

Sec. Deckert: Well, if you’re reducing troops, closing bases and cutting R&D, you leave us vulnerable.

Sanford: George, we need to increase international aid. We need to reverse this isolationist doctrine. Maybe then we can turn some of these enemies into allies.

Deckert looks at him, pensively. His eyes narrow. He displays a deep pool of wickedness coated by a thin surface of phony benevolence, as only Willem Dafoe can.

Sanford: I know this doesn’t particularly thrill you, George. But this is going to be my legacy.

Deckert: Sir.

Sanford: Now the question is: Do I have your support?

Pause. The tension is palpable.

Deckert (mechanically): That goes without saying, Mister President.

We don’t see the President, but the audience can tell he doesn’t have the other man’s support. We can tell by the look on Deckert’s face. He’s up to something, and it isn’t good.

After the one-hour mark, the movie settles into the events surrounding the State of the Union, hence the name of the movie. And the modern-day rehash of Zorro, et al, commences.

What is worthy of comment here, I think, is the detachedness of this political subplot. This is quite remarkable; “the military bill” is not connected to the rest of the story in any way, shape, matter, form or regard. Secretary Deckert says “you leave us vulnerable”; as far as I could perceive, there wasn’t even a character, a coalition, a faction, a force, to which the country would have been left vulnerable. It was just so much stuff. A point of policy disagreement, upon which the writers chose to build only to the extent necessary to create the film they wanted to create…which was zee-row.

In the movie I saw, these are purely afterthought-issues. Rather unusual for political themes within action movies, especially, political themes that give the villain all of his motivation for pursuing his misfeasance and malfeasance and what-not.

And so I got to thinking. This conversation lasts on the light-side of a minute; it defines what the whole movie is about. It touches nothing. You could molest it without mercy, scoop it out and replace it. Nothing would be disturbed. Hell, you could just dub over it. Wouldn’t it be easy to do something like this, and thus, make the whole film a little more, you know, realistic? Let’s see what I can do here.

S: George, I’m addressing the nation tonight. So what’s the hang-up on the industrial-emissions bill?

D: Well, if you don’t crack down on the greedy corporations, they’re going to keep releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and I saw this movie that says it would make the planet a lot warmer.

S: George, we need to let the businesses operate. We need to get out of this childishly hostile routine of regulation just for the sake of being a raging pain-in-the-ass; the Constitution doesn’t grant the government the authority to do that anyway. Maybe if we butt out of things, people won’t have such a tough time finding jobs.

Deckert looks…

S: I know this doesn’t particularly thrill you, George. But this is going to be my legacy.

D: Sir.

S: Now the question is: Do I have your support?

D: That goes without saying, Mister President.

Much better, right? And realistic too.

Wait, I have another idea.

S: George, I’m addressing the nation tonight. So what’s the hang-up on the death tax?

D: Well, if you keep those tax cuts in place, the spoiled-brat kids are going to be be made into instant millionaires just because their parents died, and we can’t let that happen because the government is the only thing in this country that deserves to be rich.

S: George, I haven’t heard anyone on Capitol Hill come out and tell me the treasury actually needs the money. We need to stop this business of using the tax code to punish people. Especially in their time of grief! Maybe then the economy will take off like a rocket, instead of just lumbering along like it’s been doing.

Deckert looks…

S: I know this doesn’t particularly thrill you, George. But this is going to be my legacy.

D: Sir.

S: Now the question is: Do I have your support?

D: That goes without saying, Mister President.

Ooh, ooh! I got another.

S: George, I’m addressing the nation tonight. So what’s the hang-up on the ANWR drilling bill?

D: Well, if you drill up there, we don’t know if we’ll get that much oil, and the caribou might not like it.

S: George, the area to be developed in ANWR is miniscule and you know it. We need to get away from the influence of the reckless, lockstep, take-no-prisoners environmentalists. We need to reverse this doctrine that says the human race is the only species that can’t exist without perpetually apologizing for doing so. Maybe then we’ll have a shot at making life bearable for consumers when they fuel up to drive their kids to school, and commute to their jobs.

Deckert looks…

S: I know this doesn’t particularly thrill you, George. But this is going to be my legacy.

D: Sir.

S: Now the question is: Do I have your support?

D: That goes without saying, Mister President.

But you know what’s really spooky about this? If you take that thirty-nine second subplot…and swivel it around a hundred and eighty degrees so you have a perfect photographic negative of it…you get something that comes chillingly close to real life. No, not that I think anyone’s out to assassinate the President. But we certainly have a lot of people who’d like to get rid of him, and if they can’t do that, neuter him politically. The notion of a “shadow government” so to speak, that is out to pursue a different agenda, well, it fits. Let’s just try it on for size, shall we? After all, it’s only thirty-nine seconds.

S: George, I’m addressing the nation tonight. So what’s the hang-up on the military bill?

D: Well, if you invade other nations who may not even be a threat to us, without getting permission for the eighteenth time from the United Nations, we risk alienating our allies.

S: George, we’ve been pussy-footing around with this for long enough. If we have a sovereign right to defend ourselves, we have a sovereign right to take action when we know murderous dictators are working to built up weapons systems for the express purpose of posing a threat; now, or in the future. Maybe if we have the stones to do that, we can start to make a dent in this infestation of poisonous snakes in the world’s swamp. We must reverse this doctrine of appeasement-at-any-cost, it’s brought us nothing but problems.

Deckert looks…

S: I know this doesn’t particularly thrill you, George. But this is going to be my legacy.

D: Sir.

S: Now the question is: Do I have your support?

D: That goes without saying, Mister President.

And the rest is history. “Deckert” works to undermine the duly-elected President. Not by assassination, but by peddling his inane talking points, over and over again, wherever he can.

Maybe that would have been too close to reality to make a good movie. Who knows?

Hey Morgan…your last scenario actually happened, no? Just substitute “MSM” for “D” and you got it.

And now I must get back to the BBC News…

🙂
- Buck Pennington | 08/08/2006 @ 16:09

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Friday, August 4th, 2006