I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Where does one begin? Horrible acting, horrible over-acting, no suspense, full of stereotypes, choppy story line, and poor casting. Apparently the only lines David Arquette had were "what are the codes!!" and "where's my wife and son!!!" Repeat these many, many times in a loud, over-excited, daytime soapy manner and get the picture of this movie's dialog. If this isn't Mystery Science Theater material, I don't know what would be. The best line (sports arena maintenance guy to federal agents about to cloister him for security reasons): "I'm a veteran of Desert Storm and I can keep my mouth shut!" Ugh. Remember the old CBS late night movies? Prime candidate...definitely.

Homeland Security Agent Michael Bookman (David Arquette) has not been spending enough time with his wife Lynn and son Sean. That may be about to change as they join 63,000 other fans at Washington's Memorial Stadium for the football game against New Orleans, a team which lost badly in the last game against Washington and now wants revenge.Also watching the game: fans at a bar where masked terrorists enter and handcuff them to a bomb which will go off if they move. The bomb is set on a timer, so it will go off anyway unless ...Somehow, one of the people in the bar moves carefully enough to make a phone call, and Bookman has to make yet another excuse to his wife and son.The first bomb was only a warning. A phone call made by someone with a disguised voice warns that the football stadium will be destroyed at the end of the game unless a prisoner with a Middle Eastern name I won't attempt to spell is released, and $100 million is deposited in an offshore account. The terrorist group Circle of Fire is blamed. Al Qaida is mentioned in the movie, but it is apparently separate. No one can announce this news to the crowd, and if the people start leaving--BOOM! When Bookman gets this news, he is on the phone with his wife, and he warns her to leave the stadium with Sean. Unfortunately, someone connected with the bombing threat knows where they are.Bookman and bomb expert Douglas Campbell (Richard T. Jones) must lead the search for the bomb or bombs, with numerous complications standing in the way of preventing a tragedy. Among these is the fact that in the event of nuclear war, Congress would move to quarters accessible from the stadium, and this is where the terrorists might be.Only a few people connected with the stadium or the game are allowed to know what is going on, and they are required to keep quiet--with men standing nearby with guns making sure they do.The tension level remains constant in this movie, and the excitement builds to a climax enhanced by spectacular mixing of audio and video from the game with audio and video of the efforts to prevent the bombing. If there were an Emmy for just editing in a TV-movie or miniseries, as opposed to just audio editing or video editing, they could hand that one out right now. This is also true because of the impressive job done for editing the disarming of the first bomb.Angela Bassett gave the standout performance here as the Homeland Security Agent who communicated with Bookman from the office where the investigation was taking place. She had difficult decisions to make--some of them life-or-death, and some having to be made with little warning.David Arquette also showed a take-charge attitude, though his character had trouble controlling his temper, and while his anger might have been justified, his performance needed a little more range.The football announcers did quite a good convincing job, especially the play-by-play man, who had one moment that could be ranked with the 1980 Olympic Hockey victory among the great events in sports broadcasting.I also need to single out the actor who played a suspect who was arrested. He didn't have a lot of lines, but he did a good job. At this point, I should also mention that several Muslims and Middle Easterners, or people believed to be one or the other, were unjustly accused. This to me was not a weakness because it added to the drama, though several valuable members of the explosives team could have been lost as a result.The writers really seemed to know what they were doing. I don't know enough to know whether the explosives experts were doing everything right, but they certainly dealt with a number of confusing and dangerous situations.The football game seemed real enough, though I know little about sports. Based on the commentary from the announcers, the game added a lot to the movie's excitement.This was one of the season's better TV-movies.

This review does contain spoilers so do not read it if you want to be surprised about this movie. When I saw the preview for this CBS movie I told my son we should watch it as it would be a topical movie about Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslim/Al Quaeda etc. types trying to kill a bunch of people. He told me I was an idiot as CBS would never make a movie where the terrorists were any of these and he proposed the terrorists to be white supremacists from Idaho and that any Arabs in the movie would be sympathetically portrayed and that any Muslim would be a good Muslim. It turned out that in fact I am an idiot. An Arab falsely profiled is actually a humanitarian football fan, a Muslim police officer is a victim of unfair discrimination and the terrorists willing to kill umpteen thousand of innocents just for greed are a couple of white police officers. Let's see, we have 9/11, the bombings in Madrid, the bombings in London, the bombings in Bali, etc. and who carried out those? I defy anyone to find terrorists attacks carried out by legitimate police officers of any color or race. Part of the reason to watch a movie is to be taken in by the premise and buy it as it might actually happen. I should have known from the beginning that things were not right when our star when told about the results of a wiretap of some suspect Muslims told the officer to get some translators on it as one would think the police would already have thought of having Arab translators listening to the Arab wiretaps. This movie is not about terrorism, but political correctness CBS style gone wild and thus is totally unbelievable in the end. Excellent performance by Richard T. Jones.

First this TV effort has three of my favs, David Arquette, Richard T Jones and the great Angela Bassett. Sadly they are not enough to save this odd fast paced terrorist adventure flick. The movie starts fast and you hardly have enough time to get to know anyone. It also has one of the most annoying filming gimmicks. The moving camera and fast shots of scenes and voice overs during fast shots. Its enough to give you a headache and you can see the same annoying gimmick in past disaster flicks like "10.5" and "The end of the world films" that have been on TV as of late. The story itself is a contradiction to its own purpose. Terrorist plant bombs in a football stadium and kidnap the family of one of the homeland security people played by Arguette. They warn the agents to stay away and not let anyone else know and not to move people out of the stadium. OK...so why then do they move security people in knowing the terrorists are watching them...and if they are being watched why don't the terrorists just tell the agents to leave. I mean they see them when they find the bombs and....unless I missing something....why don't they just threatened to blow up the place if the agents don't exit the arena?....To many questions like these had me rolling my eyes....the only good thing....was the final act when suspicions make for a guessing game of who's in on the threat...but again its not enough to save this frenzy of a movie that half the time looks like its being filmed by someones camcorder....Arguette has the chops to play serious but he dangles on the over the top...as does Angela...but she has it down to an art form and it works for her....Richard's laid back performance is best here. The reasons for all this drama and whats behind the threat will make your eyes roll all the way back and pop out from the absurdity...and again it finishes the same way it started fast and quick and your left feeling like you just ate your food real fast and didn't have time to enjoy it....