World Premiere, 100 min., Color
Country and Year: USA (2006)
Director: Jeff Renfroe
Starring: Peter Krause (of Six Feet Under)

Review by: Charlie Prince
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars

“The entire film is an excuse for that one scene,” star Peter Krause said after the screening of Civic Duty at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. He was referring to a monologue late in the film that asks (and I will paraphrase to avoid giving away the plot): What would you do if your wife was killed by a US patriot missile? Wouldn’t you avenge her death (i.e., as terrorists today do)? The implication, that such an actor would not be any more right or wrong than violent American efforts to stop it, is potentially controversial in today’s politically-charged and divisive environment. One audience member from Italy thanked the filmmakers for finally making a movie that speaks the truth, for pointing to US actions in Vietnam and elsewhere as a cause of terrorism today. Others, undoubtedly, will find the movie offensive. But regardless of your political viewpoint, the film is undeniably well-made. Whether you like the film may turn on your political perspective, but as a taught thriller that keeps your eyes glued to the screen, Krause’s portrayal of an unhinged and paranoid menace is captivating.

Krause plays Terry Allen, who begins the film as a model American. Dressed sharply in his suit and tie, with a loving wife and a respectable job (he’s an accountant), Allen seems an unlikely candidate for what is about to unfold. Surrounded by perpetual news coverage of potential terrorist attacks and corresponding color-coded threat levels, Allen begins to see terrorism everywhere – especially in Gabe Hassan (played by Khaled Abol Naga), his newly arrived neighbor of apparent middle-eastern descent, (an early scene in the film suggests that one reason Allen is gunning for Hassan is because one morning he notices him “checking out” Allen’s wife Marla from the window as she walks by).

The worse Allen’s personal problems become, the more he immerses himself in the 24-hours-a-day news cycle to fill the void and to make himself feel important. And things are genuinely starting to go downhill: he loses his job, and subsequently his mortgage and none of that is making his relationship with Marla any easier). His character’s arc is clear: he wants to make up for his personal problems by becoming a “vigilant” citizen – his self-confidence now draws on his belief that he’s helping the country fight against terrorism.

“What would you say if I said our new neighbor was digging around in the trash at 3:00 am last night?” Allen asks his wife, probing her interest level. She does not share his concern to say the least, telling Allen point blank to “let it go” and that it’s “none of our business.” But Allen feels a civic duty to keep a vigilant watch on Hassan, and everything about the man makes Allen suspicious. Allen begins to follow Hassan around, collecting ramshackle facts. Allen confronts his wife anew (as in, to prove wrong her earlier dismissal of his concerns) with such damning evidence about Hassan as: the man drives a long-term rental, he works at a copy shop with other middle-easterners and, most damning of all, in Allen’s mind, he sees in the trash a letter from the mysterious Sons of Benevolence. You don’t just happen across all this information one day, of course, and Allen’s wife isn’t dumb. As you might expect, she begins to freak out as Allen becomes increasingly obsessed. But Allen knows that he’s onto something. So he ignores his wife’s advice to drop it. Instead, he calls the FBI.

A few hours later an FBI agent, Agent Hillary, taps on the window of Allen’s car (with Allen seated in it). Agent Hillary is very skeptical. Allen explains, unconvincingly, that his neighbor Hassan “seems to fit the profile a little too well.” “Seems to fit the profile?” Agent Hillary asks, only half-masking his disgust, “you mean, like when you say he hangs out with other middle easterners?” Agent Hillary clearly thinks Allen is an idiot and promptly leaves, saying the FBI will look into it, and for Allen not to do anything until he hears from them.

Allen is encouraged by the meeting and interprets Agent Hillary’s parting words as an instruction to continue the investigation, which is growing increasingly intrusive. (Spoilers follow, so beware). Allen decides to snoop around Hassan’s house upon finding the door unlocked one day and finds, mysteriously, vials of chemicals around the sink and a gas mask, as well as stacks of fed-ex style envelopes in a closet. Allen calls the FBI again and again with each discovery, and Agent Hillary becomes increasingly agitated and alarmed (”You had permission to enter his house?”), telling Allen to stop or he will be arrested. Allen is becoming more and more angry – he wants the FBI to take action, and makes a threatening call to the FBI’s office (a la “the blood will be on your hands”). This doesn’t provoke the response Allen was looking for: he is immediately confronted by a livid Agent Hillary, who tells Allen he’d better not ever make another threatening call to his office. Allen protests. “I don’t owe you any explanation, Mr. Allen,” the Agent cuts him off, noting that “if you think it’s hard finding a job now, try getting one with a federal arrest on your record.” That shuts Allen up. “This is your final warning.”

In the meantime, Hassan has caught on to Allen’s spying activities. When Allen bangs on his door one day (Allen is convinced that Hassan retaliated to Allen’s break in with a break-in of his own in Allen’s house – it is implied this might actually be true, oddly enough, though it is left intentionally unclear). Hassan laughs in Allen’s face, having noticed that Allen’s wife has now left him: “You stare at me all day long. I can see why she’s mad. If you prefer men, you should just tell her.”

Which really sets Allen off. He pulls a gun on the man, ties him to a chair and starts demanding an explanation. “Who do you work for?” Allen is now mimicking genre cop thrillers. Hassan tries to defend himself: he’s doing environmental studies, he explains, extracting acid from the tap water – hence the vials. Allen is unconvinced, thinking he’s uncovered a known method of hiding money illicitly in the neighbor’s paperwork. But Hassan denies it, explaining that the Sons of Benevolence is simply paying for his education, a scholarship (this confirms information provided by Agent Hillary that the group is not suspected of terrorist activity in any way).

In the middle of this violent interrogation, Allen’s wife comes home for the first time in many days (she walked out on him, unable to deal with his new hobby), and she quickly deduces what has happened. She tries to rescue Hassan, but Allen forces her away from the door, pulls out his gun and tells her to get out of there (no doubt, in his unraveling mind, for her own safety). Of course she calls the police, who soon have Allen and the tied-up Hassan surrounded. Confronted by demands from the police and, at Allen’s demand, our favorite FBI Agent, Allen has now run out of time and has to make some difficult decisions. I won’t completely spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that things go downhill from there.

Throughout the film, you can see the psychological hints of what underpins Allen’s character. Allen is afraid he’s boring and makes joking, but telling, references to this fear when talking to his wife. He also won’t let go of another joke when talking to her: that she has a penchant for dating rock stars, an apparent under-handed reference to an ex-boyfriend of hers. As for his self-appointed role as an FBI agent, we learn, during one of Allen’s discussions with Agent Hillary, that Allen once thought about applying to the agency “on a whim.” And with his personal troubles mounting, it’s easy to see that Allen needs a way to feel important. A dangerous combination. It’s implied in the film that the incessant news coverage of terrorism is more than enough to set this little firecracker off.

But as noted at the beginning of the review, the crux of the movie, according to star Peter Krause (as Allen), is actually an exchange between Hassan and Allen in the middle of the standoff at the end. “What if I were what you think I am?” Hassan asks Terry, “what if your wife was blown up by a patriot missile, wouldn’t you honor her death?” Allen, sure of himself, argues back until the neighbor presses further, incredulous at Allen’s cocky sense that he, Allen, is “right” and that Hassan, if he were a terrorist, would be in the “wrong.” “Tell me about Vietnam” Hassan demands, and then lists off a series of other US military maneuvers as evidence (for those of you who have seen Battle Royale II, this monologue seems like a distant relative of Riki Takeuchi’s chalkboard speech in the beginning of that film). At hearing Hassan equalize terrorist attacks with the Vietnam war, Allen backs off, now on the defensive, arguing that he’s not to blame: “I am not my country, I don’t control foreign policy.” The neighbor knows that’s hardly an answer, as does the audience. The implication is that there is no defense to Gabe’s retort, again a political assertion that is sure to be controversial.

Or is that the message? Another thread in the film would seem to suggest that maybe Hassan really is a terrorist, that Allen might actually be on to something, that Hassan maybe really did break in to Allen’s house, that Hassan might really have been developing chemical weapons to attack people with via the mail system – that Hassan’s “What if I were what you think I am,” speech was not so hypothetical, that maybe it was the honest revealing of what was really behind Hassan and what he was doing.

What’s interesting about the film’s political assertions is that it seems the producer present at the screening was anxious to keep the message more open ended than star Krause characterized it. When asked whether Hassan was supposed to be a terrorist after all, the producer turned it back on the audience, asking for a show of hands whether people thought Hassan was plotting an attack or was innocent, or whether Allen was having psychiatric problems. “My guess is that if you ask 100 people, you’ll get 100 answers” – those weren’t his exact words, but he said something like that, noting that they left it intentionally open-ended.

If that was intended to be the message (and realize that an epilogue to the film which I won’t give away here weighs heavily on that conclusion), the effort, in my opinion, was unsuccessful. My reading of the story was that Allen was off his rocker, going after an innocent neighbor. Certainly if it turned out Allen was right about Hassan, it would be the result of pure luck, as he had nothing but crackpot theories to justify his suspicions. And given the well-laid out background to Allen’s character, it’s (on the other hand) very easy to see Allen as essentially schizophrenic and not thinking straight. So, it didn’t really feel open-ended to me.

But perhaps the message of the film is that regardless of whether he is or is not a terrorist, if you agree with Hassan’s equalizing of terrorist attacks with Vietnam, the fact is it doesn’t matter – that the United States should look to its own foreign policy habits if it wants to fight terrorism and that the terrorists themselves are actually sympathetic equals. Certainly star Krause saw that monologue as the essence of the film, and Khaled Abol Naga (who played Hassan) explained that he was attracted to the role because it was the rare film that gave a voice to frustrations that are common in the middle east and that are rarely communicated, he felt, here in the USA (in other words, I think it’s fair to say he agreed with the point of the monologue).

Certainly I have my own political opinions, but Cinema Strikes Back is not intended as an outlet for them and in any case you’re perfectly capable of forming your own political conclusions without my help, so I’ll keep them to myself. On the whole, Civic Duty is well-executed and as a thriller it more than keeps your interest. But given the controversial nature of the political message of the film — what the star actor said the entire film was an excuse to say – it may be the case that whether or not people think it’s a good film will turn on their political opinions. I’ll give it a 3 out of 4 (good) rating as a well-made, suspenseful thriller and let you draw your own conclusions on the film’s politics.

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© Charlie Prince

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