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TV Review: '24: Redemption'

Geplaatst op 29 november 2008 14:47 door daaf85

In the 18 months since the sixth season of 24 ended, fans have gone through the usual stages of withdrawal, including cottonmouth, involuntary spasms and rewatching old DVDs. Sunday night's 24: Redemption might seem like a much-needed fix, but it's really just Jack Bauer methadone.

Yes, Jack Bauer is back and he's a gruff-and-grizzled as ever.

Yes, this two-hour special telefilm will bridge the gap between where we left Jack at the end of Day Six -- standing on a cliff, contemplating his very existence -- and where we're going to find him when Day Seven begins -- Washington, contemplating his very existence.

Yes, it introduces several new characters who are going to play major roles in the season to come.

But 24: Redemption lacks the urgency and excitement that have been hallmarks of the series at its finest. It also adds an awkward air of self-importance that makes an ill-fitting match with show's general Saturday Afternoon Matinee sense of cartoonish absurdity.

As the telefilm begins, Jack Bauer is in the wilderness, both literally and metaphorically. On a three continent jaunt fleeing a subpoena from Washington, Jack finds himself at an African school run by a former Special Forces buddy (Robert Carlye). His person demons have only snowballed with each passing season, so Jack is probably hiding for them as much as that summons.

Naturally, he's chosen the wrong Fictional African Country to hide out in. Rebel leaders are plotting a military coup and they're kidnapping and brainwashing children as their soldiers. The growing army is prepared for resistance, but they aren't prepared for Jack Bauer. They couldn't possibly be.

In this respect, the telefilm could more appropriately be called 24: Jack Bauer Saves Africa and it delivers a vibe that's a little bit Rambo, a little bit The Last King of Scotland and a little bit Shaft in Africa.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, it's inauguration day for President Taylor (Cherry Jones), our first female president and the pending coup represents her first challenge.

For several reasons, the domestic plot and the African plot fail to mesh.

Cherryjones_24_240 On one hand, the problem is visual. Shot in South Africa, the location work has an ersatz verite look that's more cinematic than anything the series has previously attempted, even if it shamelessly apes the murky and gritty aesthetic of so many recent films featuring the region, from Blood Diamond to Tsotsi. The cut-backs to the flat American scenes are jarring.

What's worse is that the Washington material consistently drains tension from the life-and-death happenings in Africa. The Washington stuff is absolutely related to the crisis across the world, but other than one decision, it isn't a direct impact. With the poorly connected segments, 24: Redemption loses its real-time imperative. Yes, Kiefer Sutherland voice assures us that events are occurring in real-time, but without a clear end-game and with only slightly effective cliffhangers, the 24 feeling abates.

The telefilm would have been far better served by concentrating exclusively on Jack Bauer's adventures in Africa, though writer Howard Gordon and director Jon Cassar were already short on ideas for that aspect of the plot. Jack gets a true movie-star entrance and the movie's first action sequence, in which he takes on an entire unprepared squadron, is absolutely superior. It's so good, in fact, that everything that comes afterward feels like an anti-climax.

The African nation of Sangala is fictional, but the issue of indoctrinated child soldiers is a very real one for the continent. This puts Gordon and Cassar on unsteady footing, given that 24 functions on the level of the hyper-plausible -- the most extreme version of the way things could truly happen -- rather than the plausible. The locations look marvelous and the young local actors are all strong, but the 24 team's tendency toward caricature -- whether Gil Bellows as an over-rigid bureaucrat or the UN official whose every move screams "cheese-eating surrender-monkey" -- cheapens the truly serious issue. By the end, rather than delving into the pragmatic realities of Africa's instability, we're left with Jack Bauer: Great White Father, a disappointingly paternalistic and colonialistic a cliche.

So much time is spent introducing so many characters that few of them establish a real impression. Jon Voight oozes the proper corporate malevolence, while new first couple Jones and Colm Feore convey matching rigid posture and morals, though when Feore turns out to be vaguely evil in Episode 10, nobody in America is going to be surprised. On the African side, the ever-incredible Isaach De Bankolé is underused, while I was utterly confused that with so many available African actors, Tony "Candyman" Todd is playing the ascending strongman.

While the CTU gang is entirely absent, familiar faces abound, including Peter MacNicol, Bob Gunton and Powers Boothe, whose departing President Daniels actually shows more nuance in this short window than while chewing scenery last season.

Ultimately, 24: Redemption might smooth a few rough gaps between the sixth and seventh seasons, but it doesn't feel essential.

That being said, the sizzle reel for the new season that follows the movie is tremendous. It turns out that I absolutely am ready to have 24 back, but just because something has Jack Bauer doesn't make it 24.