This Movie is Great as a Movie.

I watched this movie when it came out ten years ago and I thought it was brilliant as an eleven-year-old. Ten years later I still think that it is a great movie, but it shouldn't be used to attack America's boondoggle of a foreign policy for the last five years. First of it is a movie, an action movie and one that tried to be intellectual at the same time. The themes that the movie tackled are basically those of America's worst fears after the fall of the Soviet Union. These fears include the splintering off of soviet satellites into war ravaged principalities that threatened to destabilize the region of eastern europe. Second the fifty year buildup of superweapons in these regions meant the clear risk existed of some conscripted underpaid schmo of a soldier with a high enough rank wouldn't be tempted to sell these weapons to the highest bidders. Which is why the united States pays off russia with billions of dollars to make sure that this doesn't happen but that doesn't mean it couldn't have following the wild days of life after the USSR. Third the cavalier attitude of the U.S. was very appropriate for this film, back then our greatest enemy was in tatters, we were the biggest dog in the yard, and more often than not the world looked to us for a leadership position in the world and in disasters because we were the sole superpowers.

The U.S. was roundly criticize for not helping in Rwanda after we were licking our wounds from Somalia, yet we rebounded and help stabilize Bosnia-Herzegovina when asked by Britain. Before you idiots start blasting this movie as a neo conservative film and giving it low marks because of your idiotically aligned political outlook I just have this to say. This movie did not know that America would be led by an incompetent administration into a worthless war that didn't need to be fought. fourth this movie tried to anticipate the biggest threat to the emerging integrated world economy at the time which is non state actors using violence to spread their message. If it seems like you have a wounded pride by saying this movie is yet another America propaganda against your small country, well get over it. It is a movie, one that didn't do that well upon its initial release due to the abysmal Batman and Robin that made the public weary of this movie. Also this movie should be lauded for portraying the semi realistic workings of the intelligence community. Relatively speaking it was more grounded in reality than the likes of Mission Impossible which came out a year earlier. Lets not forget to mention that as far as terrorists go the one in this movie wasn't that bad, he was a more rounded terrorist than today's media would have you believe and very sympathetic.