September 5

The more time which passes from when I watched this, the more of an ever growing distaste I begin to have for this film. I will say, it’s a perfectly fine procedural journalism film. Removed from its subject - which I will get into - it’s a pretty standard story of the morals of journalism when it comes to tragedy. It actually sets itself up to dissect and unpack the nuances of this issue, but it fails to do anything interesting. 

It’s tightly edited, shot really competently, placing you almost uncomfortably close in the action, and it has this gorgeous blend of archival footage and stellar production design making this feel as chaotic as they want it to.

However. There’s a line near the start of the film which I think epitomises the problems this has “it’s not about politics, it’s about emotions” Peter Skarsgård‘s character says about the unfolding events. This singular statement which could be taken as the thesis for the entire movie is the movies problem

Firstly, on an emotional level, this story doesn’t work. The film opts to tell the story from the perspective of these reporters who feel almost unfazed about what’s going on. It’s implied that they feel this weight, and there’s a scene where John Magaro contends with the fact that perhaps he made the situation worse. Literally nothing comes from this scene. It’s back to reporting.

Just because you tell an audience through a scene that a character felt a certain way isn’t enough, we need to feel as if they feel this burden which I don’t believe they do. When the credits hit and you’re told how many people were watching this it’s shocking, and I wish I felt that shock and weight throughout.

Sadly as well in their team of reporters we perhaps follow the least interesting people the most. There is a German woman on their team who is clearly contending with the fact that her country has become a place for violence once again but this is again addressed in a single scene and that’s all. There’s even an interesting dynamic between her and an American who is cautious about working with her which is simply just resolved in the same scene. 

Nothing about this film is emotionally compelling, and interestingly when you really think about the dramatic tension the script relies on, it doesn’t revolve around any of these characters, it instead revolves around the corporate entity of ABC. Huh are you serious?

When the team face their slot being taken away from them and given to CBS unless they share their feed with them we get this build up of tension. Don’t worry though they figure out that they are able to share the feed and put an ABC logo on top so they still own the feed. YAS capitalism? Should I really be pumped that part of the film’s tension is built around whether a corporate entity has ownership over a tragic event?

Sure obviously this is a thing that happened so it would make sense to include it in the film, but then try to unpack and explore this! Do our characters feel weird that they’re selling violence and tragedy to the corporation they’re attached to? Is it morally correct for a corporation to exploit tragedy for profit? Like just try say something interesting.

Secondly, if the film’s goal was to not be political, it sorely misses the mark. What Peter Skarsgård’s statement boils down to is essentially a character saying that journalism and reporting is apolitical and is simply about showcasing what’s happening objectively to elicit an emotional response. This statement in itself is a misunderstanding of journalism and by extension art as a whole.

Art is political and there is no escaping that. When art attempts to be apolitical, that in itself is a political statement. It’s not to say a statement like this couldn’t be made, actually having a character who truly believes this could create some interesting tension but it amounts to nothing and it’s also just not true. Which again could be so interesting to have characters come up against dealing with the fact that what they’ve done is political but it doesn’t want to do this!

Instead what’s served is an attempt to be so avoidant of politics that it ends up being political. The Palestinian terrorists in this film might as well be replaced with a generic terrorist. The film’s attempt to dismiss the Palestinian aspect of the story is very bizarre, especially given our political climate it’s very hard not to read into this. Honestly this is a quick flashy watch and I could see a lot of people just enjoying this on surface value but give it a second of thought and it fails