Short summary is that Jack saved the day.
It was a wild ride, everybody from re-writers to stunt-men taking extreme, dangerous chances.
Because they had to.
That is what heroes do.
There are some that say this incredible drama weakened with age.
I am here to object.
They get deeper. Partly because we have developed such a bond with the cast, their idiosyncrasies, their flaws and their human tendencies. True, they all perform heroic deeds in one maximum overdrive hundred mile an hour kevlar coated pressure cooker of one day, but, to me anyway, heroic because they must overcome so much resistance to do what is right - NOT the right thing.
They fuck up quite a bit, disobey direct Presidential orders, work covert ops, hack into top-secret, classified files, shoot a hoard of hostiles and, well don't get me started on Jack's methods of extracting information form bad guys, Jack (indirectly) kills his brother (a real bad guy) AND his father (a REAL and guy), in the line of duty.
But all that is OK because we win in the end. Everybody but Jack. America is safe. The Russians, Chinese and Radical Islamists are all vanquished. For now. Innocent Americas can go to the amusement park and ride the ferris wheel without fear.
In a blatantly Hitchkockian evading, Jack has confronted the SecDef and said his good-byes to Audrey, his daughter, who is lying on life support systems, a Type III catatonic, after being captured by the Chinese trying to find Jack and tortured without mercy.
Jack softly closes the door after the tear-jerking farewell and walks to the edge of the SecDef's estate (I am thinking Santa Barbara) high on a cliff. He still carries the suppressed Beretta 92FS in his right hand. We hear and see the crash of waves a hundred feet below. The constant thematic and familiar hand-held camera closes in on Jack and we sit and wonder as the score builds its crescendo, what he is thinking as…
The screen fades to black and the timer rolls to 05:59:59.
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment