From Deseret News archives:
Ho, hum: Jack's back
I was kind of bored.
Titled "24: Redemption," the movie (Sunday, 7 p.m., Ch. 13) is a transition to the upcoming seventh season, which begins in January. Fox is advertising it as a stand-alone event, but it really isn't.
Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) is in Africa trying to escape his past and the U.S. government, which isn't so grateful for everything he's done. He gets caught in the middle of a crisis (natch) when a self-styled general kidnaps young boys for his army, turning them into killers.
There's loads of violence. And, yes, kids get killed.
The problem with the sixth season of "24" was that it recycled plots to such an extent that it became entirely predictable. The problem with this movie is that, already, it feels like we've seen it before.
Let's see ... Jack tries to rescue people. He shoots a whole bunch of guys who can't shoot him even though they've got automatic weapons. But they capture and torture him.
Is it the end for Jack? Of course not.
Not surprisingly, the events are tied to what appears to be the bad guy (Jon Voight) back in America. And a new U.S. president, Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) is being inaugurated.
Some of those maneuverings in Washington, D.C., are promising. But Jack saving the world — or at least part of Africa — in two hours is sort of same old, same old.
Ho, hum.
Another "West Wing" coincidence: Four weeks ago, I wrote a column about the myriad similarities between the real-life Barack Obama campaign and the faux-life Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) campaign on the late, lamented "West Wing."Here's one more for you:
The character of Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) on "The West Wing" was based, in part, on a real-life staffer in the Clinton administration. Josh, you may recall, was President Bartlet's deputy chief of staff before he quit the administration to run the Santos campaign.
After Santos was elected president, Josh became the White House chief of staff.
Just who was the that Clinton staffer upon whom Josh was based? None other than Rahm Emanuel.
And Emanuel is about to become the White House chief of staff under Obama.
Weird.
And, by the way, there was a scene in "West Wing" in which Josh was reading a newspaper story about how he'd once sent a congressman who'd crossed him a rotting fish in the mail. And, reportedly, Emanuel sent just such a gift to a pollster.
And one more: "West Wing" fans will recall that for the first two seasons of that show, Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) was President Bartlet's highly efficient, slightly peppery and entirely lovable secretary. That is until she was killed in a car accident.
