The Grid DVD Review
By Frances L. Egler
If this is the state of international counter intelligence, another 9/11 isn't likely to happen, it's guaranteed. The 2004 TNT mini-series The Grid was first release several seasons ago as TNT's portrayal of the war on terror. After the tragic London underground bombings last summer, and the recent attempts to commit mass murder on trans-Atlantic flights, The Grid should seemingly become more prescient. While the interlocking international forces involved in the war on terror are vividly portrayed, the intangible complexity (and moral ambiguity) of that "war" are beyond the reach of this sporadically interesting mini-series.
Imagine a network of operatives, working sinisterly towards their goal, with no regard towards decency and the things that made America a great nation. That describes most of the investigators and terrorists in The Grid. The Grid seems to want to pursue the seeming contradictory goal of create a palette of various shades of grey that portrays terrorists and their pursuers as mixtures of good and evil, but at the at the same time show a world with the simple definitions of Americans and British good, Muslim killers, bad. The result has moments of depth of understanding in a fairly shallow pool of clichéd international intrigue.
The Grid begins with a botched Sarin gas attack in London that leaves several unfortunate American college students dead along with the Muslim terrorists planning the attack. The Brits respond with a mixture of aplomb and aggressiveness, thanks to two of the few interesting characterizations in the mini-series. Gemma Redgrave brings some weight to the British counter intelligence chief. And the fabulous Bernard Hill is all gravity and understatement as the chief British counter intelligence investigator. She's MI-5, he's MI-6 and apparently that's important, but we never really know why.
The American response to the attack is lead by Juliana Margulies, looking quite serious in her straightened hair. She has moments of authenticity but more often appears as if no one had told her that there was an exam at school today and she came unprepared. As the oddly named counter intelligence director (there seem to be about 10 people with this title on both sides of the Atlantic) Maren Jackson, she exudes no confidence and has an oddly unconvincing declamatory way of speaking (thank god the director tightens these shots to not include her hands, as I am sure they would be gesturing emphatically). Forced to say lines such as "Screw the bureaucracy!" she assembles a new team that apparently simultaneously makes the National Security Council, the CIA and the FBI irrelevant. You can see why she succeeds so well the Bush administration. But as this new response team for terrorism is assembled with all the advance planning of the US post-war plans in Iraq you can only imagine the initial results. They aren't good.
Joining her on the team is the adorable Dylan McDermott, the FBI head of, you guessed it, counter terrorism in New York. To show his earnestness, he forced to wear dull button down shirts and v-neck pullovers, and even a stocking cap. And he isn't above beating a confidential informant in a public area. He seems to be fairly uncomfortable in the ill-defined role, possibly because of his bizarre backstory: he can't just hate terrorists because he's a New Yorker who lived through 9/11; he's a New Yorker who lost his best friend in the Towers, and then guiltily married his dead best friends' widow, and serves as father to his child. Subtlety has been bumped off The Grid.
Unfortunately, most of the British and American Muslims (one is a white Chechen-American, just to give them that all American boy appeal) are either active terrorists, former terrorists or terrorists in training. Apparently, this is the series' creators attempt to show all sides of the Muslim world, which is seemingly inhabited by these three types of people.
The Grid compares itself to the mini-series Traffik, claiming to show all sides of a story. (The release was before 24 became all the rage, which seems to share some of its clock driven thrills, if without the same sustained intensity, or complexity). But while showing a lovely travelogue of the travel destinations of terrorists (Yemen, Khazakstan, Cairo, Queens), the dialogue often lapses into wooden exposition that might be better left unexplained.
An even greater battle is among the bureaucrats, with Tom Skerritt playing seemingly the same wormy government apparatchik that he played in Jodie Foster's Contact. Juliana and he go mano a mano in the White House briefing rooms and, this being produced by the network that shows two hours of ER reruns daily, I will let you guess who eventually comes out on top.
