A movie I expected little from turns out to be a great surprise. Denzel Washington and Tony Shalhoub are excellent and the nonstop pace and intrigue consistently keep you interested. Annette Bening’s character, however, is a real pain in the ass, not only for the characters involved but the audience too. Her whole shtick of gradually making information known is barely tolerable, but when you finally learn “the truth,” you realize that all of it could have been prevented, one way or another, very easily. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but the convenient little tie-in to Bening’s character and the terrorists is just what I said - convenient…too convenient. It wasn’t necessary and should have been done away with. These few plot holes and more keep gnawing away at you afterwards and you wish they had been dealt with properly. If they had been, THE SIEGE would have been complete.

      Bruce Willis plays out the usual cliché, but through no fault of his own. Frankly, there isn’t much insight into his character’s motives and an actor can only do so much. Ultimately, the general ends up being the same old one-dimensional character whose only reason for being evil seems to be because all movie generals just are. THE SIEGE’s only other drawback is this total reliance on a stereotype to explain a character’s actions. That’s a whopper of a mistake.

      Does the film get too preachy? Compared to what I’ve seen lately, not at all. THE SIEGE at least centers on a real message that can be pondered and understood. (A movie generally only feels preachy if what it’s saying isn’t necessarily true or right.) So besides using the obvious clichés too much, THE SIEGE is a pretty good flick and more entertaining than anything I’ve seen recently (Fall 1998).