Showtime's 'DC 9/11' Is A Shameless Bush Booster

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Dull Paean
Showtime's 'DC 9/11' Is A Shameless Bush Booster
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 6, 2003; Page C01

Simultaneously dull and disgraceful, "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," a new Showtime movie, uses the tragic attack on America in 2001 as the basis for a reelection campaign movie on behalf of George W. Bush.

The film is an insult to those who perished in the attacks and, really, an insult to America generally, but it's so insanely boring that people aren't likely to become very outraged over it. Written by conservative Republican Lionel Chetwynd, who admits to a bias in Bush's favor, the film -- premiering on Showtime tomorrow night at 8 -- is primitive propaganda that portrays Bush as the noblest hero since Mighty Mouse.

Nothing in historical record suggests Bush acted particularly heroically Sept. 11, 2001, but Chetwynd's script has him all but saddling up a horse and riding over to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban man-to-man. When Bush announces he will give a speech to the nation from the White House and aides try to talk him into seeking a safer location, Bush bellows, "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come on over and get me. I'll be home!"

Bush repeatedly demands he be taken to the White House as Air Force One flies aimlessly about on that horrible September day: "I've got to get back to Washington because I'm not going to let those people keep me from getting home," he barks. And earlier: "Get me home! . . . The American people want to know where their damn president is." And still earlier: "People can't have an AWOL president!"

All this may be pure fantasy that occurred only in Chetwynd's head, or wishful thinking by members of the Bush administration, who cooperated with Chetwynd in his research. Actual footage of the World Trade Center towers burning and collapsing is used as part of this love letter to the president, an especially unseemly touch.

Even those predisposed to accept the movie's fanciful version of what happened will be hard-pressed to see it through to the end. Overlong at two hours-plus, the film bogs down repeatedly in meetings -- meetings of the Cabinet, meetings of the war cabinet, meetings at Camp David, meetings in the Oval Office, meetings, meetings everywhere. In his zeal to proselytize, Chetwynd forgot how to dramatize.

He tries to make Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress, with the nation watching on television, the climax of the film. So there are repetitious scenes of Bush speechwriters fretting over the address, and then Bush himself fussing and fine-tuning it. During a scene in which Bush and wife Laura make pillow talk, she tells him, "Don't ever forget about how they treat women. That's a big part of this."

Who does she mean by "they" at this point? Terrorists? Islamic radicals? Arabs generally? It's left vague, and it sounds like one of those remarks that probably never got remarked in the first place.

Chetwynd is so enamored of the president's speech, delivered Sept. 20, that he includes a huge portion of it in the film, a sure-fire snooze inducer. We see Timothy Bottoms as Bush delivering the speech intercut with news footage of real people in the House chamber listening and applauding -- even a shot of Hillary Rodham Clinton clapping in rapt approval. It was a good speech -- but good speeches do not make good drama, especially when we've already seen the real thing.

Suddenly, Bottoms vanishes and the director, Brian Trenchard-Smith, cuts to footage of the real Bush finishing the speech, adding to the impression that the film's first mission is Bush-boostering.

Chetwynd has a checkered but not undistinguished career. One of his best TV scripts was turned into a moving story about real heroism, "Falling From the Sky: Flight 174," in 1995. This time, his priorities are all screwed up. Trenchard-Smith tries to enliven the replicated meetings with such gimmicks as overhead shots, but nothing helps. A couple of very pretty overhead shots of Air Force One are rigged up by the special-effects department, but otherwise the film is visually inert.

Obviously some of the most troubling issues raised by the attack -- including the horrendous failure of U.S. intelligence -- are not mentioned or are briskly glossed over. Chetwynd is determined to show Bush and all the little Bushkins behaving like living saints. Even sinister adviser Karl Rove, the Dr. Strangelove (Strangerove?) of the administration, is turned into a human platitude, though at one point he does dare to note it would be "politically wise" for the president to make his speech to the joint session of Congress.

Rove also gets to utter such glowing estimations of his boss as, "This is a man who feels very deeply." It's one more encomium in a movie already so slanted that it risks sliding right off the screen.

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