Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I am a 'Z' and 'The Confession' fan, have been since a teenager. I am about to watch this for the first time. Skimming these reviews, I saw so many people bemoaning the lack of a DVD release, I thought to make note that this film is now (June 2017) streaming on Filmstruck (a service that includes Criterion films). Having read some reviews, I am expecting something truly extraordinary. I am rating it 8 of 10 based on my previous encounters with Costas-Gravas.

In Uruguay in the early 1970s, an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods) is kidnapped by a group of urban guerrillas. Using his interrogation as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.This film was so incredibly timely, it is a little amazing it was made, and somehow even almost ended up getting played at the Kennedy Center. Not only is it critical of the United States' role in South America (even if fictional names are used), but it was released right in the middle of it. We were still actively pushing regime change through the 1970s... (and the 1980s, though we moved north).

A superior film in every way. I last viewed it Stateside, dubbed into English, on a public-television broadcast perhaps 25 years ago. It appears available on VHS at collectors' prices, but I'd very much prefer to see it treated on DVD as was lately done to "Z," remastered, subtitled, and with as many bonus features as possible.You may recognize more of Costa-Gavras's stock players besides Yves Montand. One noticeable stylistic difference: Given the grimness of its scenario "Z" occasionally bemuses, but State of Siege does not, even when Theodorakis's theme song tries to distract you.This said, for its narrative style and documentary look, is State of Siege a representation of a true story or merely "based upon"? At least this American chooses not to judge without having the unalloyed facts arrayed before him. The film did succeed in the sense that it made me want to learn more about its subject.The long out-of-print companion book contains Solinas's screenplay, stills from the film, a statement by Montand, and supplemental published materials presumably used in research with an extensive bibliography. Perhaps its most revealing component is the transcribed interview by Nicholas Ray of Solinas and Costa-Gavras, which mentions among other things tape recordings of the captive on whom Montand's character is based. Yet it is Costa-Gavras' final statement on the choice of filming location that is at once funny, sad and chilling in hindsight, and provides ample proof that times change.

A fictionalized account of the early 1970's kidnapping of Daniel Mitrione by the Uruguayan Tupamaro terrorist group, "State of Siege" is almost a mirror image of the director's previous film "Z." Mitrione (here called Phillip Michael Santore and played by Yves Montrand) is ostensibly working for USAID, but in reality - a reality uncovered for the viewer as the Tupamaros hold recorded interrogations - he trains the Uruguayan police and associated hangers-on how to torture suspects electrically, run death squads, and destroy the Tupamoros. Outside of the terrorist safehouse a newspaper reporter witnesses how the US government covers for Santore, the Uruguayan crackdown on dissent, and the aftermath. The repression is carried to rediculous extremes; the police storm the national univercity. As the police enter a courtyard, a PA speaker begins playing a revolutionary anthem. They quicky destroy it, when another speaker then blares out the anthem. That too is destroyed, and then another. Somewhere out of sight another squakbox begins playing the anthem, and the police rush off camera.I call "Etat de siege" a mirror of "Z" because the picture takes place in flashback, the director is willing to hint where the picture is set at the beginning (the car which plays an important part has a Montevideo license plate), and the director is willing to say who is really backing the repression. Most importantly, however, is that the main character is the exact opposite of the politician in the previous film. Santore is willing to use midaeval means to keep South America an apolitical market for American goods and seller of raw materials for US industry, though he hides behind the banner of anticommunism. The politico in "Z" only wanted to keep Greece a non-nuclear power.