Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

GUENOT PHILIPPE Yes, a Costa Gavras movie is always recognizable, as a Yves Boisset one, the ONLY two French directors who dared speaking of political actual facts which other directors were afraid to talk about. In France, it's not like in America, where film makers are free to speak of everything, see for instance ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN or EXECUTIVE ACTION, speaking of Watergate file or JFK assassination...In France, if you except Yves Boisset or Costa Gavras, no one, even today, would dare to speak of this. OK, I admit that Costa Gavras, in this film, doesn't talk of French events, nor as he did for Z, but when he made UN HOMME DE TROP or SECTION SPECIALE, that was directly related to French history. The Costa Gavras scheme is here the same as in Z. He uses an event to emphasize the political dimension just afterwards. Even in using a thriller topic, see Z for instance...I would have loved seeing Costa Gavras directing a film about war in Algeria and OAS organization. I don't think he did. I won't repeat what the other users told about this one, but I repeat, you deal here with a typical Costa Gavras' feature, which I could tell the director's name without seeing the opening credits.

jakob13 Forty-three years after its release 'Sate of Siege' has not lost its bite.Uruguay has moved on his the days of the 'Tupermaros, an urban guerrilla group, who opposed the 'democratic' government in Montevideo, supported by the US government sponsored terrorist training of the military and the policy. Yves Montand is Philip Michael Santore, a police man from Chicago, who is sent under the cover of the Agency for International Development, in the hot spots of Latin America in the 1960s and early 70s, to beef up the armed forces and police in Santo Domingo, Brazil and Uruguay. In reality, Santore teaches torture--electric shock, water boarding, black sites and the like, to combat as he says Communists and rescue Christian civilization from left-wing radicals in opposition to authoritarian rule. We didn't need to await George W Bush for the US to fight 'terrorism', since the measures of torture and coercion were already in place. And are still taught today in the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security (once known as the School of the Americas). The name has changed but not the mission. The deft hand of Costa-Garvas advances the narrative; it is a matter-of-fact rendering of a kidnapping; it has that telegraphic style of reporting, with communiques issued daily on the state of health of the kidnapped three (a Brazilian diplomat, Santore and another American working under cover at the US embassy). And then, there are the demands: you release our comrades and allow them to seek asylum in a third country. But the government doesn't budge. It--surprise--is unaware that the likes of Santore is in the country, doing his training in torture...wink, wink. Questions are raised in parliament by the left and center parties, but they are ignored by denial. The Nixon administration wouldn't rescue Santore by pressuring Montevideo to meet the Tupamaros demands. At the same time, the chief of police, played by the underrated Renato Salvatore, undertake to find the guerrillas and put them out of action or make them disappeared. The music by Theodakis sustains the tension. In the end Santore's body is found in the boot of an automobile. The film opens with a funeral mass in the Cathedral, and from there, in a long flashback...the story of Santore is told. He is replaced, but at the airport as the new 'AID' man descends with wife and two children, a Tupamaro watches...for no matter how many urban guerilla had been rounded up torture, killed or...the network has survived. Costa-Garva's camera is records: he has used it effectively in 'Z' as he did in 'State of Siege'. Although times have changed, not so America's repressive methods as the world's policeman. Somewhat weakened by the phony Bush war in Korea and the stupidity of Libya and idiocy in Syria, let alone the quagmire in Afghanistan. 'State of Siege' ends on a confident tone since the US is still losing in Vietnam. And Brazil and Uruguay is a panel in Che Guevara's call for one, two or Vietnam to challenge American imperialism. On one hand, the film is a chapter in history; on the other, it is powerful recall that little has changed in the nature of US imperial pretensions.

scichowski I watched this movie for a class I am taking at the University of Texas, and it is a good movie. However, people who use it as proof of US intervention in Latin America should check out the facts behind the movie. No one has ever provided any factual evidence that Mr. Mitrione, the actual person the Santore character is based on, ever was involved in torture. The leader of the Tupamaros, Raul Sendic, was released from prison in 1987, and he stated that torture had nothing to do with the Mitrione kidnapping and murder. He states that it was the riot control tactics Mitrione was teaching the police were the reason he had been kidnapped. He goes on to say that they were not going to kill Mr Mitrione, but keep him indefinitely. However, he and the rest of the leaders were captured, as is shown in the movie. Therefore the leaderless movement had no idea what to do, and killed him. This does not detract from the movie as a great work of fiction, however, obviously it cannot be used as any sort of proof of American injustices.

oscar jubis State of Siege shows how the U.S. aided and abetted right-wing dictatorships in Latin America during the Cold War. Yves Montand plays an American sent by our government to teach torture techniques to police in Uruguay. He is kidnapped by Tupamaro guerillas, interrogated and presented with proof of his activities. We witness how the military, the diplomats, and the press deal with the crisis. State of Siege generates a great deal of tension and suspense, even though we know the outcome. Director Costa-Gavras tends to romanticize the Left, but what is presented here is now widely acknowledged as fact. State of Siege is a film of historical importance that deserves your attention.