Movie and Television Reviews

Bauer is back!

24 started to get away from us a little inseason six when some of the action seemed a little much even for Jack Bauer, but if season 7's opener, Redemption, is any indication, 24 may have glided back down to a more stable altitude.

In Redemption, Jack Bauer is working at an American school in the fictional African country of Sangala when the American ambassador hands Bauer a subpoena for torturing people (Allegedly. Jack wouldn't do that ). Bauer leaves the school and a short time later a coup breaks out in Sengala. The vicious usurping junta, led by a General Juma, recruits adolescent boys for his army and generally terrorizes the population.

Meanwhile, back home, a new female president, Allison Taylor (24 has also had a black president, anticipating Obama by seven years, and a Huckabee look-alike president. That means either Huckabee or Sarah Palin in 2012.) is getting ready to be sworn in as president. The outgoing president, Noah Daniels, doesn't want to intervene in Sengala. We're led to believe that it's because Daniels has something to do with Jonas Hodges, the leader of an organization helping the junta.

The sub-plot involves the son of the president, Roger Taylor, whose friend has access to evidence that may implicate Hodges.

In a scenario reminiscent of the solid movie Tears of the Sun, Bauer returns to help the children. The transition of power occurs in Washington.

Tears of the Sun (Special Edition)

It's a promising start.

I liked the change in locale. We might not see any of the CTU this season. I do hope to at least see Kim, however.

The villains are believable in a 2009 geopolitical context- everybody agrees, because it's not a left-right issue and George Bush didn't take action in any similar situation, that African junta leaders can be bad dudes.

The action and pace are typical 24 which is to say, great.

Politics/Message:

I thought that the ousting of conservative Joel Surnow would mean that in this season 24, Jack Bauer would liberate Buddhist priests form Guantanamo with the help of wrongfully detained taxi cab drivers who dared speak out against Bush's plan to sell Iraq to Exxon and Afghanistan to Columbian drug dealers, but I was wrong; Redemption, at least, is pretty darn conservative, almost traipsing upon Neo-con territory.

For example, the bad president, Daniels, argues that the African country isn't worth American lives because they didn't attack the United States, don't pose any threat the U.S., and have no important assets. Hasn't that been the mainstream anti-war line for five years?

The good president, Taylor, says that it's our duty as a decent country to intervene, and that a failure to act would lead to suffering. Hasn't that been the whole Neo-con spiel since the nineties?

In Redemption, the United States is a good country, even if some individuals aren't. Africans can be bad all on their own without an American pulling the strings. They utter progressive banalities like, "Don't you want to fight the [American] Imperialists."

In the most realistic television portrayal of an organization since the Shriners on Happy Days, the U.N. representative is a weaselly coward.

Not much, but conservatives should be thankful for every cultural crumb thrown our way.

24 - Seasons 1 - 6