24: Seasons 1-3
by Brad Turner, Bryan Spicer, Davis Guggenheim, Frederick King Keller, Ian Toynton
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carlos Bernard, Dennis Haysbert, Elisha Cuthbert, Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn RajskubDirector: Brad Turner, Bryan Spicer, Davis Guggenheim, Frederick King Keller, Ian Toynton
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Arabic (Original Language); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; German (Original Language); Korean (Original Language); Russian (Original Language); Serbo-Croatian (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-12
Studio: Fox Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of 24: Seasons 1-3
Movie Review: Praise from a hopeless fan
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me first say I hate television. And what I have more than television itself is a television series. Yet I find myself hopelessly devoted to this show.
24 came along within months after the 9-11 attack so its timing could not have been better for the show's main McGuffin is terrorism. Hip and stylish the shows main gimmick is that one season takes place over a twenty-four hour period (hence the name). Yet it is more than a gimmick as it gives the series a driving pace that takes the viewer on a rollercoaster ride.
Contemporary music peppers the dramatic score of the series which heightens the drama as well as the ticking of the clock at each break.
The clever use of multiple screens (one of the only times I have seen this technique actually add something to a movie) also adds to the drama.
But I have yet to mention the hero of the story Jack Bauer himself. In any other frame work and in any other time Jack saving the world (or at least America) every season would wear thin but somehow it works. And it is not only for those things just mentioned but the intensity of the acting of Kiefer Sutherland who plays Bauer that makes the implausible plausible (and after all what am I to say is implausible in the world we live in today)?
Bauer works for CTU, the counter terrorism unit of the CIA based in Los Angeles, and who continually risks life and limb in every episode as if he were suicidal. But Kiefer is convincing as a man devoted to his country. Perhaps this would come across as overly sentimental if not somewhat mindlessly militaristic in another period but these days it sure is comforting to have Jack around.
I sometimes recall the days of the 60s series "The Man from UNCLE" when I think of 24. When the show was in its first run we were in the height of the cold war and the idea of an avenging angel in the know on our side equipped with a panoply of technological gadgets was very appealing. The comparison between 24 and "The Man from UNCLE" falls short too in that fact that some of the gadgets the hero of that show, Napoleon Solo, used were so fanciful they were beyond belief whereas in these days when computer technology makes great strides in months instead of years the technology of CTU seems quite plausible. Unlike the aforementioned sixties series that dabbled somewhat in situations that were at times surreal or just plain absurd 24 is always played with great seriousness. One might come to think of the show as taking itself a little too seriously if it not for the depiction of the dangers being so great and the torture committed the good guys and bad guys alike being so graphic and horrific ( CTU has its own dark side as they are often found brutally interrogating prisoners reminding one of the "ticking time bomb question" asked by Alan Dershowitz immediately after 9-11 as we as a country for the first time in modern history started considering how torture in certain circumstances could be justified).
Don't get me wrong there are definite problems with the show. The bad guys in this series are usually the embodiment of evil and many times they are swarthy third world types making the show a tad jingoistic but those characters are usually balanced by money hungry whitebread Americans willing to sell out their country.
There is also the problem of Los Angeles CTU - how long will the fate of the world and all of these various terror plots be centered in Los Angeles and why does it always fall on Jack Bauer's shoulders to save the world?
Yet as a fan you forget all of that with the clever pacing, the multiple screens and the whiz bang sets complete with the dazzling images on the screens of the computers of the workers at CTU (which at times seem to work exclusively as Jack's personal support staff).
As long as terrorism is in the headlines 24 will remain topical satisfying and in someway comforting.
Besides it's great fun.
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