Movie Review: Unthinkable

This film's premise is extremely simple: an American-born Islamic terrorist, played by Michael Sheen, sends a tape to the US government claiming that he has planted 3 nuclear bombs in three US cities that will detonate in a matter of days; he allows himself to be caught and an unrestricted "interrogation" occurs; a Jack Bauer situation is presented to the viewer: "How far do you go in violating the law to protect the greater good?"

The film presents Sam Jackson as the interrogator who literally has no limits to what he will do to extract information. On the other end of the scale is Carrie-Anne Moss, an FBI agent who is assigned, against her will, to witness the interrogation and is appalled that such means are contemplated, much less allowed, to find out the location of the bombs. Pretty much everyone else in the movie serves as vacillating side characters who represent the disconnected, uninformed judgments of every person in the world who has a strong opinion of torture but no real, hard facts about it; much less any direct experience on either side of "aggressive interrogation."

Unthinkable is a character study and morality tale that carefully and skillfully forces the viewer to see the act of torture from several perspectives, never truly condemning or condoning it as an act. The backbone of the movie is Sam Jackson's performance as the torturer. He is so calm, collected, and confident in his staggeringly brutal acts of torture that he actually comes across as equally terrifying in the brief interactions he has with his own family between torture sessions with the terrorist. How can someone who has just done THAT to another human being picnic with his wife and chat with his kids over a webcam?
But if Sam is the backbone, then Carrie-Anne Moss serves as the heart and soul of the film. Hers is the only character to experience a real developmental arc throughout the film: her initial repulsion to torture goes through various phases (tolerance, acceptance, participation, remorse, etc.) as she struggles to balance her ideals with the desperate need to know what the terrorist knows before millions of people die.

But that really just reinforces the point of the movie: while the act of torture itself is clearly distasteful, what I found truly disturbing was the lack of commitment to ideals shown by all the other characters save Moss. They want the results of the interrogation, but absolutely nobody wants to take responsibility for the decision to get them or follow through to the necessary conclusion.

I came to a few personal conclusions about torture watching the movie, some of which were developed after watching 7 seasons of Jack Bauer's television network sanitized torture:


First: Torture is like war: don't start what you can't finish, and never hold back.

Second: If you engage in torture (my definition: to engage in the irreparable physical, emotional, or psychological damage to a subject during or in place of interrogation), you have irreparably compromised your own humanity in direct proportion to the pain which you inflict.

Third: In a similar, real-life scenario, I simply don't know how I would feel about torture. On one hand, I believe it is better that one man should suffer than that an entire nation should perish--so do whatever it takes to stop the bombs. Take off the gloves and make the terrorist suffer. And God help the man who has the will and ability to carry it out...
On the other hand, it may is better to do everything possible to prepare for the bombs to go off, to keep looking and investigating and searching and...whatever can be done, but, should all of that fail, let the bombs go off before compromising the principles and values that the country stands for by torturing someone. Nobody wants thousands or millions to die in a nuclear holocaust, but nobody wants to devalue the principles of the United States to the point where America stands for nothing more than the enemies it fights. And America as an idea and ideal would be irreparably broken if people are willing to compromise those principles by inaction just as much as evil action. By attacking only in defense, we as a nation are fully justified in extending the full measure of our wrath and indignation while preserving our values and moral standing.

The fact that the movie got my brain thinking about the subject was enough for me to recommend it. In fact, to indulge a more religious perspective (a lens through which I view virtually everything in life,) I was reminded of many portions of The Book of Mormon that dealt with the conditions of a righteous population of people during wartime: the death of Laban in Jerusalem, the slaughter of the people of Ammon while they prayed, the execution of traitors (whose betrayals had cost thousands of lives) by Captain Moroni. In the end, I do not believe I can say with any true confidence how I would react in a hypothetical situation; I can say that if confronted with the decision in real-life, I hope I would be uncompromising in applying the principles and values I have learned throughout my life to do the right thing.

I do recommend the movie to anyone who enjoys 24. The movie is far more graphic in violence and language than the TV show, but that gives this 'Jack Bauer' scenario significantly more context and gravity than television permits.