Strip Search

Man, this was bad. This was originally 2 hours long??? That's a LONG time to hear that drivel twice. Once is too much. Glenn Close is the only one who emerges relatively unscathed, and even she slips up a few times...bad writing can be a powerful thing. Ken Leung really descends into some high-school-drama-club schmacting, poor guy. And Sidney...dude...what happened? I hope you got paid--A LOT. As someone who agrees completely with this thing's message: this exercise is just embarrassing.

Writing this review some 15+ years after watching this a lot of details have become a bit foggy. I believe it was good at showing cultural differences and potential consequences, but becomes a bit heavy-handed message (subtly) at times.

I'm shocked that HBO got Sidney Lumet to direct this crap. The script is preachy, contrived, appallingly ignorant of cultural differences, and altogether abysmal, written by Tom Fontana the creator of some of those abysmal aughties TV dramas. What shook me even more is how fucking awful the acting is from Gyllenhaal, Leung and Lastra. And this is Lumet, the guy known for getting their finest performances out of so many of the finest actors of all time. It's the lowest point in his career.

Lumet collaborates with one of the most hard-boiled writers in modern TV for a welcome return to the stark, no-nonsense style of his '60s work. It's revealing to see just how much times have changed. Lumet's Fail-Safe was a terrifying cautionary tale made at the height of Cold War tensions. Strip Search tackles tough questions of civil liberties and was made at the height of post-9/11 abuse of prisoners. It was cut from 120 minutes to 56 and aired only once on HBO.