It seems too easy to talk about this movie in terms of 9/11, but quite frankly, it’s hard to view it any other way. There’s a handful of sweeping shots of the New York skyline sprinkled throughout – the movie’s set there, what can you do? – and, obviously, they include the World Trade Center. It didn’t mean anything at the time, of course, they just happened to be in the viewfinder. But it’s hard not to read meaning into those towers now, especially in a movie like this. Like Arlington Road, I find it really hard to think of anything much to say about it, because it’s too close to the scary truth to think about. The worst part of this one is that while it creepily foreshadows real life events, it then goes on to address other possibilities that haven’t yet, thank God, been acted out in reality. There’s a sense in which the scenario here is somewhat ridiculous, and I’m almost certain there must’ve been reviews in the year of its release (1998) that took the mickey. But now – while, sure, the rounding up of the Arabs may be a little OTT – it’s not so hard to see that we’re really not so far from such insanity. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s no failure either, and post-9/11 it’s certainly of note and worth a look.

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