Diplomatic Siege (1999)

Thanks for the memories!

A Masterpiece!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Bad acting, bad special effects, a typical B movie with a typical American propensity towards faking the facts. Serbian terrorists? "Serbian Liberation Front"? Come on! The movie was released in 1999, the year when NATO started the war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo. Before that, there were fights between regular Yugoslav army and police against the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army", a terrorist group killing Serbs, attacking military and police outposts and precincts, which is still to be found on the list of terrorist groups in the world. It is not difficult to conclude that the movie screenplay swapped Serbs for Albanians, and Kosovo Liberation Army with Serbian Liberation Front. A typical attempt to influence the public opinion, where the bad guys are Serbs instead of Albanians, with the intention of covering the fact that the American were actually allies of a terrorist group (which we have seen many time since 1999)...

Nothing kills a good action movie like bombs that look like firecrackers. And in "Diplomatic Siege," all the bombs are firecrackers. Some dude shoots a bazooka – poof, it's a firecracker. Another dude throws a grenade – poof, another firecracker.And they're not even good firecrackers. They're like those ones that have a great name on the wrapper, like "Hiroshima Deluxe," but just make a flash and a big puff of smoke and you're all, "Man, I spent $16.99 for that?"Daryl Hannah is in this. She's somewhere between "Roxanne" hot and "Kill Bill" used up and poisoned by cigs. In this movie, she plays the role of "Daryl Hannah Playing the Role of Somebody Who Isn't Daryl Hannah." She fails.Peter Weller is in this, looking and acting exactly the same as he has in every movie he's ever made, from "Buckaroo Banzai" to "Robocop" to… has he done anything else?"The secret to good acting is to purse your lips all the time and act like you don't care," is something Peter Weller never said, but probably thinks all the time.Tom Berenger is apparently in this, but I lost patience before he showed up. Doesn't matter. If he didn't show up as the guy from "Sniper," it wouldn't be worth the wait anyway.Brion James plays some kind of general or colonel or something, but who cares, because he plays it like a Replicant. I suspect he always was one anyway. Rest his soul. I always felt bad he died after making two decent movies and 100 that weren't any damn good.Aaaaaanyway, I don't know what this movie is about. A group of bad guys takes over an embassy. Or something.You know what? Just skip it and read a book.

It managed to be near the bottom as poor, hasty, naive, and the worst of all : got potentials ! Since (Die Hard - 1988) this golden, kind of new, formula of an action/disaster movie became a mad fashion; so many movies got its basic elements to remake it differently. Sadly, this word "differently" could mean good, average, and yes.. Bad.At the year of 1999, there were 3 copies already, or let's say 3 movies that had been affected with the die hard's atmosphere or case : (Sonic Impact), (Final Voyage), and (Diplomatic Siege). I won't say (Diplomatic Siege) was their best, but I'll say it isn't their ugliest !It oozes naivety. There are some parts where you feel how the script treated it wrong, highly wrong. Like it's a well story has been made into a school play. Though, I see that nothing was as bad as the direction; Mr. Gustavo Graef-Marino killed any good point in this script, making z-grade scenes out of what are supposed to be important ones. Most probably he's originally a stunts' director who got nothing to do with the drama. He was shooting any scene has no action in it with great negligence where the camera is always stationary, the cadres are all one, and the angles are primitive. That was boring before being idiot ! It ruined the thrill too. It wasn't a TV's work-like, it was the lowest TV I've ever seen !Even the smallest details weren't safe of the naivety's siege, for little instance; I can't forget the embassy's map ! whether in the computer or with the respectable big officers, It looked like something drawn by an elementary school's pupil (with low imagination too). (Peter Weller) looked indifferent as a character and as an actor ! Notice his Ropocop's metal tone comes out while he gets angry near the end. (Daryl Hannah) is not a big actress so don't wait for much, she seemed taller than the lead, and not even beautiful as she used to be once. (Tom Berenger), I believe one of the best talents here, was just handsome in the military suit, however without any role came with the suit ! The terrorists' leader who I don't know his name (or maybe don't want to !) was the top of what this movie can reach of weakness, and an epitome of its destitute condition.The explosions were the only thing to be watched in here, plus the few guns' fights. There were the only moments that hit the mark anyway. Though as a whole, I must say I've seen worse. All in all, it's not about the low production; it's about the dull dealing with what it had of gold that turned eventually into tin.P.S : If you're insisting on watching it, then beware : don't watch it through a TV channel, because with many commercials it becomes long drawn out !

I'm usually a sucker for mindless action flicks, but this was an incredible waste of time, both for the actors involved and anybody who tried to watch. The military special effects are laughably fake, with colored smoke substituting for real explosions. I like Weller, Hannah, and Berenger, but even they cannot rise above this horrendous made-for-TV script. In fact, this was easily their worst film -- for all of them. When the actors do stop to give their lines, the result is often unintentionally humorous. There are far too many unnecessary plot elements, making the movie feel like 6 different scripts were thrown into a blender. The scenes stolen from other movies ranging from Mission Impossible to Toy Soldiers are immediately recognizable and come across as gratuitous and weak. It's just a shame. There was so much potential, instead it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.