Path to 9-11 getting Bad Reviews from TV Critics

[RamboLiberal]

Robert Bianco - USA Today

Keitel is wonderful and Wahlberg does well by an underwritten part, but Path's story is too diffuse to be held together by two characters. Unfortunately, outside of some entertaining work by Amy Madigan as a CIA analyst, Patricia Heaton as Ambassador Barbara Bodine, and Penny Johnson Jerald as Condoleezza Rice, no one much registers.

Yet for some viewers, politics will be Path's stumbling block. In its tone, images, assumptions and factual liberties (led by an invented failed attempt to capture bin Laden), the movie misses no chance to slam the Clinton administration and no opportunity to support a very expansive reading of police powers, here and abroad. ("How do you win a law and orderly war?" "You don't.")

Path has enough trouble just following history. Rewriting history is an ambition it should have left at the door.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-09-07-path-to-911_x.htm

Doug Elfman - Chicago Sun-Times

Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb

I once sat in a car forever waiting for my mom to come out of a grocery store. I thought that was the definition of "interminable." I had no idea "The Path to 9/11" was in my future.

This is what happens during 4 1/2 lonnnng hours of "Path." Terrorists talk about killing Americans for Allah. FBI and other security officials try to track them but fail. 9/11 happens.

You don't say.

This is the most anticlimactic, tension-free movie in the history of terrorist TV.

It's hard to fathom a brouhaha brewed over such a bore. ABC has received tens of thousands of letters -- including one from Bill Clinton's office -- insisting "Path" is wildly inaccurate and should not air.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-elf08.html

Ken Tucker - Entertainment Weekly

It's also difficult to suppress a giggle seeing Rice being played by Penny Johnson Jerald, once an evil First Lady on 24. This is the problem with TV movies that don't sweep you up in their narrative — you get distracted by famous faces playing famous faces. (The guy doing CIA director George Tenet: He's what's-his-name, the dad from The Wonder Years...right, Dan Lauria!) I don't fault these actors — heck, the best scene in five hours is a brief one in which Everybody Loves Raymond's Patricia Heaton (as ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine) condescends magnificently to Keitel (''I think the people here might appreciate it if you could pronounce the name of their country properly'').

The performances are actually wonderful. That they're in the service of presenting a monumental horror so tediously is appalling, really. Grade: D+

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/tv/0,6115,1516013_3_0_,00.html

Rob Owen - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

As the number of filmed dramatic projects related to 9/11 continues to grow, there's undoubtedly a greater need to offer context, which "Path to 9/11" attempts, but it does so in such a ham-fisted manner, it fails to tell an inherently dramatic story well.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06250/719494-237.stm

Matthew Gilbert - Boston Globe

With all the ado about ABC's new docudrama ``The Path to 9/11," one point has gotten lost. While Clinton administration alums such as Madeleine Albright protest its perceived inaccuracies, and conservatives defend its bias, and many curious viewers plan to tune in to see for themselves, it's still not a very good piece of dramatic storytelling.

Like ``The Reagans," which CBS dropped amid political pressure in 2003, it offers the occasion for a political wing-ding but not for a very satisfying viewing experience. It's a few decently crafted terrorism set pieces -- the manhunt for 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef , a near capture of Osama bin Laden -- loosely strung together into the semblance of an epic.

<snip>

One egregious moment that is likely to remain, however, features Patricia Heaton hamming it up as Barbara Bodine , the US ambassador to Yemen. After the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole, Heaton's Bodine refuses to help O'Neill and his FBI crew in a scene that is painfully over-the-top.

``Mr. O'Neill, you are the epitome of the ugly American," she says. Suddenly the movie changes awkwardly from suspense thriller to psychodrama/Emmy grab. As Condoleezza Rice , Penny Johnson Jerald also strikes a wrong note, looking almost campy with a black mark pasted onto her teeth. Jerald, best known as President Palmer's diabolical wife on ``24," is arch here, as well.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/09/08/fragmented_path_tries_to_cover_too_much_ground/

[Imagevision]

1. And directed by amateurs to boot!!!

[kimmerspixelated]

2. Patricia Heaton is a most definite hard-nosed right-winger!

She is one of the few in Hollywood. She held her hands down while everyone else was applauding some Bush bashing at one of the award shows.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sandnsea]

6. She's married to Ed Harris

Both of whom are great Dems. I've got no idea why she did this movie, but it sure wasn't to be a Bush-licker. And I don't even know why you inserted Butch-Dyke, even if she were.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sandnsea]

8. It was a good role???

And she had no idea the truth would be distorted so horribly?? She's as much a victim as anybody else. What is it with people that they always want to drag the victims into the political fray, instead of staying focused on the victimizers. This is about the corporate right wing ties, let's leave it there.

Although you might want to take a look at your pre-conditioned beliefs about what makes a "real woman". :eyes:

[Pugee]

9. Heaton is Republican and has even been on O'Liellys show to talk about it.

http://www.patriciaheatononline.com/pharticles2002-03/oreilly_factor.html

And she is married to David Hunt

From Wikipedia--
Heaton is known as an outspoken conservative, pro-life activist and is the honorary chairperson of Feminists for Life, an organization that opposes the practice of abortion. She is a Republican and supporter of both President George W. Bush and the U.S. military invasion and occupation of Iraq. In addition, she is an active supporter for the nonprofit world-hunger organization Heifer International. On her website she mentions giving Heifer International gifts to the cast and crew of Everybody Loves Raymond. Although she has been quoted as saying "once a Catholic, always a Catholic," Heaton now attends an evangelical Presbyterian church with her husband and their four sons. She has not left the Catholic church nor converted to Presbyterianism.

Heaton has been married to British businessman David Hunt II since 1990.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Heaton

[sandnsea]

10. I was responding to an Amy Madigan post

so

:shrug:

[Kikosexy2]

11. She needs to ...

just stick to shopping at Albertson's....how on earth she ended up with those Emmys is a mystery to me??

[yorkiemommie1]

4. she has three sons

let's hope she takes them down to the recruiting station just as soon as they are old enough.

given the fact that her heroes expect a US presence in the ME for decades, she has plenty of time to raise some fine young soldiers for the cause.

[MattP]

5. Heaton is a wacko

Does anybody remember when Heaton said she would fast a day for Terry Schaivo, I thought that was a sick thing to do when you consider the reason she was in a vegetative state in the first place.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

12. So, it appears as if the bottom line is that the great Documentary

is a stinker. :rofl: :spray: :patriot: