Hijack 2.3: On Counting on Actors Who Play Good Guys Not to Play Bad Guys

We find out lots of essential things in Hijack 2.3. 

[And there will be spoilers ahead .... ]

First and foremost: Of course Sam Nelson was not going to sacrifice any innocent person's life for anything he had planned for the train he had hijacked.   His threatening to sacrifice that man was just a ploy to get the people running the trains in Berlin to do what he needed them to do.

This raises, at least to me, the interesting question of can you predict what a character will do in a TV series or movie based on who the actor was, or more specifically, what characters the actor has previously played.  Even in The Wire, in which Idris Elba played someone high up in a drug cartel in Baltimore, he displayed a conscience and a heart.  That in itself was why I was sure that Sam, who was an honest man with a big heart in the first season of Hijack, wouldn't trade in an unthreatening person's life in the second season.

Of course, actors occasionally do switch from playing heroes to villains. Elba has indeed done that a few times.  Ronald Reagan played a bad guy for the first and last time in his acting career in The Killers.  He would go into politics after that, and become Governor of California and then President for two terms.  Not the greatest President, in my humble opinion, though almost any predecessor looks good in comparison to the current occupant.  I was surprised to see Eddie Redmayne play a villain in the brilliant  Day of the Jackal -- after his performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything -- but he was charismatic in Jackal, and I saw, after a bit of research, that he's played lots of villains in his career.

Back to Sam, we also in the third episode of this second season find out that the reason he hijacked the train was to save his former wife from the brutal people who hijacked the plane in the first season, and in between the two seasons killed his son.  Lots of tension building up, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

See also Hijack 1: Don't Miss It! ... Hijack 2.1: A Tale of Two Vehicles ... 2.2: What Is Sam Nelson Really Up To?

The Day of the Jackal: Riveting Intellect and Adrenalin

Well, 2024 has two weeks and a few days left, so I can tell you with confidence that, amidst stiff competition, The Day of the Jackal on Peacock was the best TV series I saw this year.

Here are some of the reasons why (with no spoilers, hence "some of"):

• The series, adopted from Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel, has almost nothing in common with the 1973 movie, also adapted from the novel (which I never read).  All three, as you no doubt already know, are about a master assassin (that's about all the movie and the TV series share).  I thought the movie was really excellent.  I liked the TV series -- the last two episodes of its ten episodes up just yesterday -- at lot more.
• Eddie Redmayne's performance as the Jackal was out-of-the-ballpark fabulous.  (If we're talking about Yankee Stadium, somewhere down Jerome Avenue.)
• The story will keep you guessing in every episode, and sometimes many more times than once.
• There are all manner of police.  Some good, some bad. Some get killed, some don't.
• There are all manner of villains.  Some bad, some really bad. Some get killed, some don't.
• There's a James Bondian aspect to the Jackal -- like a Bond and all his assets, turned bad.  And he doesn't need a Q. Other than the fact that he's an assassin, I wanna be just like the Jackal when I grow up.

On a more general level, I just wrote, in my review of The Agency, that 2024 has been a year for superb spy thrillers.   The Jackal isn't a spy, but MI-6 in London is the agency most after him, so this makes The Day of the Jackal indeed another example of a superb spy thriller streaming this past year.  A windfall of edge-of-your-seat excitement.  Hats off to creator/show-runner Ronan Bennett.

I know you'd like me to tell you more, but I don't want to spoil even one of the many jolts you'll have when you see this series.  Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

The Trial of the Chicago Seven: A Little Too Much Fiction in this Docudrama

My wife and I saw The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix on Saturday. Having lived through the real trial of the Chicago Seven (originally Eight) in 1969-1970, we thought there was a little too much fiction in this docu-drama to be 100% successful and effective.  Nonetheless, it was powerful viewing.

To back up a little, as I alway tell my classes, docu-dramas are by definition never 100% truth or exactly as the events in the movie actually happened.  Hey, even straight-up documentaries are never 100% true, because the film-maker inevitably has to leave some events, one hopes inconsequential, out of the film.  Real life is too sloppy and inexact to fit in just as it is or was in a documentary.

But docu-dramas go a big step further away from truth.  At the very least, they rewrite or make-up dialogue.   Worse, they often make up characters and/or endow characters who existed in real life with deeds they never did.   This works best the further back in history the docu-drama goes.  I couldn't possibly have any personal recollection of what Lincoln said and did.  So I was able to enjoy Spielberg's Lincoln with zero quibbles.   But 1969-1970 is a lot closer than are the early 1860s to our time.

So, lots of people noticed that Tom Hayden's closing statement in the Aaron Sorkin docu-drama wasn't made by Hayden in reality, and was not a closing statement.  Or that the pacifist Dellinger -- who did in fact earlier read the names of some of the American fallen in Vietnam during the trial-- never hauled off and punched a guard who was trying to escort Dellinger out of the courtroom, as so dramatically depicted in the movie.  To be honest with you, neither my wife or I jumped up and shouted during the movie that those events never happened.  But my wife had a vague sense of irritation throughout the film, and I was annoyed after the movie to have been brought to tears by that closing scene, so effective, that didn't happen in real life.

I suppose Sorkin might say that such a reaction is my problem, not his, and if I was brought  to tears by the ending that didn't happen in reality that shows that Sorkin succeeded, doesn't it.  I'm not so sure.  I think that, even in a docu-drama, or maybe especially in a docu-drama, the film maker has an obligation to present a greater quotient of truth.  Again, especially if the docu-drama is so close to home in time.  I'm sure Marc Anthony never said "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;  I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him," but that didn't in the least get in my way of really enjoying Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, from the moment I first read it, so many decades ago, and for that matter thinking about that play right now.

Maybe the answer is Sorkin's movie is meant for a younger generation than mine.  It has lots of assets, including boiling down the differences between the protestors on trial to Hayden vs. Abby Hoffman.  I don't know if that's true, either.  But since I don't know for sure that it isn't, I'm ok with thinking back on that crucial aspect of The Trial of the Chicago Seven, and enjoying the recollection and contemplation of that fundamental conflict between political revolution (Hayden) and cultural revolution (Abby Hoffman). And I should say the acting in this movie, including Eddie Redmayne as Hayden and Sacha Baron Cohen as Abby Hoffman, was just superb.   Regarding those two, special kudos to two Englishmen talking at each at some length in passable American accents.

So, see the docu-drama - with no reservations if you weren't around the first time this trial happened, back in the 1969-1970.  And see Medium Cool made in 1969 if you'd like to see a documentary about the protests around the Democratic National Convention which ignited the trial.