Customer Reviews

Dirty War

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a fire fighter who has been part of many weapons of mass destruction drills with a large metropolitan fire department, I can tell you that this film portrays a dirty bomb explosion and its aftermath exactly as it would actually happen. It's frightening!

It is a very well made film. The charaters are well played, interesting and believable. The plot moves along at a good pace and is accurate and riveting.

I can't exactly call it "entertaining" because of the subject matter, but it is indeed a film every American should see. This is far scarier than any horror flick I've ever seen..... This could actually happen as portrayed....

This film has rightly been compared to the brilliant 1989 series "Traffik." Obviously it cannot reach "Traffik"'s scope in 90 minutes, compared to over five hours. However, there is still the same intelligent approach to a complex issue, without the hysterical melodrama that an American film about the same topic would undoubtedly bring to the issue, like the overwrought "The Day After" did for nuclear war in 1983.

Much of the film reminds me of the compelling 1998 drama "The Siege." However, that film featured big Hollywood stars, necessitating "big dramatic moments" for them to show how well they can emote. There is none of that here.

The performances are uniformly excellent, but there is no lead, and there are no big character moments. We just get a serious look at a fictional attack on The City, London's financial district, from the point of view of the security services, the firemen, the government and the terrorists themselves, who are not portrayed as monsters but as focused, intelligent men with horiffic goals.

The DVD features a great commentary track with the director and his co-writer. Instead of just saying how brilliant each actor is or describing what is happening on screen, as if for the blind, like so many of these tracks, the two of them offer a wealth of information about the making of the film, and their thorough research into the topic. They give a real sense of why they felt a fictional approach was best. It's nearly as good as the film and a worthwhile addition.

It's just a pity HBO didn't include the BBC News discussion special which aired immediately after the film in the UK, "Dirty War: Your Questions Answered." It was much like the special episode of Nightline that aired after "The Day After" in 1983, in which various officials and other commentators debated about the film.

Still, this disc is highly recommended.

I just saw this movie on PBS, it's about Islamic fanatical suicide terrorists setting off two "dirty bombs" in central London (a third was caught before setting off his bomb). The plot is very well done, and very scary, but the scariest thing was how clueless the authorities were in handling the aftemath!

Although you might have seen it on HBO first (or PBS second), "Dirty War" is a BBC production that dramatizes terrorists exploding a "dirty bomb" in the middle of London. Also known as a radiological weapon, a "dirty bomb" is simply a conventional explosive (e.g., dynamite) packaged with radioactive material. When the bomb goes off the radioactive material is scattered in a considerably larger radius than the conventional explosion thereby increasing the number of people who become contaminated and could well end up dying. With such things we are not necessarily talking truck bombs because it could be something contained in a brief case. Constructing a nuclear bomb is a complex procedure and stealing one could have its problems. In comparison, getting radioactive material and blowing it up seems a lot easier and therefore a lot more likely. In the Age of Terrorism, a "dirty bomb" is a lot of people's worst fear and "Dirty War" tells a story of how it might play out.

The story begins when Scotland Yard learns from a number of sources that terrorists and materials used in radioactive weapons have entered Great Britain. The race is on for undercover detectives and terrorism experts (Ewan Stewart, Martin Savage and Koel Purie) to find and capture the terrorists before they can detonate one of their devices. Meanwhile, firefighter Murray Corrigan (Alastair Galbraith) is tired of putting up with a civil defense plan that will only be too little, too late. For example, there are not enough contamination suits and nobody can stand to be in one long enough to do even a fraction of what they are supposed to do. Practice drills might be good for propaganda purposes for the public, but the people who have to do these jobs are only getting discouraged, fearful, and angry. Then one of the bombs goes off the city's emergency services plan starts to fall apart immediately.

The obvious lesson being pushed by "Dirty War" is that the British government is blind to the inadequateness of the preparation methods, an incompetence personified by the new Minister for London, Nicola Painswick (Helen Schlesinger). My own belief is that government officials probably know how bad the situation is but are just incapable of indicating as much in public. Anybody with a third grade education can see that the numbers do not add up when you look at the casualty projections and compare them to a tally of supplies and personnel that would have to deal with them. I think there is much more of a tradition in Britain of getting in the face of politicians, as we see all the time in the floor debates on the House of Commons, and that is essentially what "Dirty War" does. Unfortunately there is not an American counterpart that would do the save service here, which is troubling since I have to think we would be the more likely target for such a terrorist attack.

I still remember "Threads," the 1984 made for television film that is undervalued when reduced to being called the British version of "The Day After." With both of those films the question left to viewers was "What can we do to prevent this?" But while that question is still a good one to ask with "Dirty War," there is this other question of "What can we do to deal with this when it happens?" Given what happens in the movie, it seems that is the more important question because the answers are not as obvious and the gap between what is and what should be seems to be greater. It is hard to think otherwise after seeing this film or after catching a television news story about how many beds there are in the Washington, D.C. area for treating people who have been contaminated.

Actually I think the counter-intelligence plotline takes away from the potency of the dirty bomb detonation. The idea, of course, is that it could have been a lot worse except for the actions of those who have the job of protecting and defending, but I was actually more interested in what the people responding to the attack were going to do. Even if such efforts failed it is impossible not to see the heroism of their efforts. When the film jumped ahead to the final scenes I was thrown off because I was really getting into the story and what was happening with Corrigan at that point.

Ultimately "Dirty War" reminds me most of the second season of "24," where it dawned on me that they were not going to be able to get away with having the nuclear device deactivated at the last second (or seven seconds in the James Bond tradition a'la "Goldfinger"), and the damn thing was going to have to go off. That would be another reason for wanting to deal more with what happens and less with the cops and terrorists bit. We have seen enough stories like that and it is what happens in the hours after such an attack that has more resonance with us. That is why the final scenes of the fenced off sections of London hit home: we are thinking what it would be like to live in a world like that and we know that saying it could happen is nothing but blind and unwarranted optimism.

Prepare yourself for a truly terrifying 90 minutes. The lack of Hollywood star-power and the documentary-like filming immediately put you on the edge of your seat. If you liked 'Traffik' or 'Edge of Darkness' this is up there as one of the classics of the genre. This is as serious as drama gets.


*SPOILER*: Having lived in London and being familiar with the streets and skyline, watching the scenes of the army trying to contain a near riot as the mushroom cloud of radioactive material spreads out over them was like being punched in the gut.

Some might accuse this film of fear-mongering, but if that's the case then they've lost sight of what Dirty War truly has to teach us: that a dirty bomb could easily explode in any city around the world and even after September 11 we are still woefully unprepared for it. This is one of the finest films about terrorism to come along in a very long time. It presents, in very stark detail, the affect of a dity bomb attack on a major city like London. What makes this film so great is the way it was made: more like a documentary than a fictional movie. There are times when you actually feel like this is happening. Another great thing about Dirty War is the way it depicts politicans, police officers and Muslims. There are good and bad in all those groups. Often when you see films like this, especially American-made films, they depict the heroes fighting against the evil Muslim terrorists. While that is certainly shown in Dirty War, it also shows good Muslims standing up against the terrorists and lazy politicians who put their country in danger. That kind of well-rounded view is rarely seen in films of this nature. Will this movie scare the heck out of you? Yes, but then we need that now and again to remind ourselves we're still in danger.

As a student of Counter terrorism this movie hit a lot of items I have studied. Realism is in this movie, however to those not interested in the subject it does not have the "action" that many expect.Dirty War

Dirty War was produced over a year prior to the London subway bombings by Middle Eastern terrorists.

Prophetically, in Dirty War, First-Responders are planning and training for just such an attack...with inadequate equipment, training and manpower. The Politicians keep reassuring the public that all is well and London is prepared for any attack.

Terrorist cells smuggle nuclear fuels and produce a series of dirty bombs and manage to explode several of them in the London subway entrances. Chaos ensues. The MI-5 and 6, and Scotland Yard investigators step into high gear and intercept several terroristis and bombs prior to their going off -- using video cameras on the London streets.

Does this sound like "life" immitating "art" ? Or, vice-versa? It is. The "docu-drama" format makes it all look so real.

With one viewing of Dirty War, it becomes apparent how dangerous, arbitary and opportunistic the terrorists are.

Incredible movie....so realistic and such quality from the Beeb. In light of the 7/7 incident(s) in London you can see a play by play of how the security forces tracked down the bombers in London, it's so realistic it's scary! MI5 & 24 Hours can not hold a candle to this movie.

I have seen this movie and have studied it. Although it is a fictional movie it nails various problems Western countries "will" face in the future. Intelligence experts know some country in the West, probably Britain or the U.S. will suffer some kind of attack be it a dirty bomb or leveling of a chemical complex.
The problems will be the same. The movie pretty much tells the viewer each one. Lack of equipment, lack of trained people, lack of coordination, lack of planning, lack of communications and a lack of politicians in telling the truth.
All of these problems come to life in the movie, and the movie emphasizes each one in step. The beginning of the movie shows the inadequate training, equipment and coordination. Later on we find out about the problems of communications and planning, and near the end we find out the politicians saying everything is all right.
Whats amazing is that this movie could be used to describe the disaster response that the various U.S. government agencies (federal, state and city)did. All that went wrong in the movie can be matched hand in hand what went wrong in the Mississipi basin.