The State Within
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DVD details
Actor: Ben Daniels, Eva Birthistle, Genevieve O'Reilly, Jason Isaacs, Neil PearsonBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 360 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Warner
Product features:
- Can you believe what your superiors tell you -- even if you are the British Ambassador to America? In this high octane, action-packed conspiracy thriller, a terrifying plot is played out along the dark corridors of power. When a flight explodes in mid-air over Washington D.C., the British Embassy finds itself enveloped in a diplomatic catastrophe. What happens next is a cat's cradle of tangled aff
DVD Reviews of The State Within
DVD Review: Preachy BBC series
Summary: 2 Stars
Is this an espionage mini-series or a polemical documentary about all that is wrong with the U.S., from British eyes ? I quickly became bored with this series as it went from one scene depicting U.S. "human rights abuses" (including the death penalty), to the next. Preachy and ideological in content, somber and depressing in tone and even in color (was this thing shot during winter in Britain, or does the sun ever shine in D.C. ? ). Very typical BBC production in which the bad guys are neo-cons and the U.S. "far right". DVD Review: Don't get paranoid: they are megalomaniac
Summary: 5 Stars
Such political fiction is flabbergasting. War has become a business in the hands of private interests. Armed and security forces have been privatized and today companies deal with war in order to make a profit out of it. They can't succeed without the right politicians in the right places, but that is always easy to get if these politicians are demagogical enough to flatter public opinion and to manipulate events to create the proper public opinion among the people, a public opinion they can easily use in order to move to the war they need to make some hefty profit. Who cares about the many million people that may die in the process. Actually they will get into the undertaking business to make a profit on the casualties too. That is the first interest of this miniseries. But there is plenty more. If the state can be colonized by the death peddlers, what happens internationally and hence to diplomacy? Diplomacy becomes, from that point of view, the right way to assassinate the right people after trapping them in some cage. A plane for instance that will be exploded at the right time and at the right moment to cause the horror and hate these businessmen need. Too bad for the victims who are not innocent in the eyes of these war mongers because innocence is cowardice and blindness and that is from this point of view the worst guilt you can imagine, unconscious guilt, the guilt of playing innocent, because that can only be a game, an illusion, a make believe. Throw all the innocent people in the world down some kind of chute without a parachute. Flush the world of all these cowards who may, if they are not manipulated, prevent a war, stop a plot, invert a scheme, a malefic scheme of course. But the film goes slightly further than that cynicism. Some people and even forces are against these plotters known as the neo-conservatives today, the Nazis some seventy years ago. The aim of these people and these forces who do not want to use war to benefit the petty interest of a few and to impose death and suffering to the vast majority of the people is always vastly insufficiently articulated and un-enlightened because too much is out of their reach. Some believe the state is the power OF the people FOR the people BY the people, but they have to bring hard evidence to convince the decision-makers to stop the plotters who do not need that kind of evidence since they use the gut reactions of the people moved by the sensational news brought to them by the media. And to get that hard evidence you have to get down into the gutters of life, down into the sewage of hatred, down into the darkest seepage of the endocrinal perspiration of the money-aiming egocentric criminals that are driven by both fear and greed. The film shows marvelously how the real manipulators at the top of the plot, or at the bottom if your prefer, are moved constantly by greed that is unspeakable and the fear that this greed nourishes, nurtures and grows in their logic that knows the profit of this greed might be denied at any time. They turn paranoid because of their greed and they start making mistakes. Politicians in that field are slightly more complex because they become addicted by being under the influence of their ambition to take power, to keep power and use power in order to satisfy their vengeance somewhere, their lust for power somewhere else and their total disregard for others everywhere because they are locked up in their schizophrenia, but a schizophrenia that has managed to get rid of the positive side of the double or triple personality and that has only retained the negative megalomaniac side of it. They may even think they are inspired by some god, that they may be, that they are god himself, or herself, who cares, since after all he or she may be gay. A diplomat then has only one advantage in that situation: he is covered by some real security, independence and freedom and he can use that to get to the root of the evil and to manage the truth to come out. And yet he cannot protect all his friends, all his associates, who will be seen as accomplices if he fails, and who are the first targets for the plotters. The film yet is optimistic somewhere, maybe even na?ve. Yes the warmongers were stopped before they could enter Iran. But the war mongers are still here and are still plotting. They even use all kinds of social or ethnic problems in the world to put those who would oppose their ambition ill at ease and in a difficult situation. Even the present economic crisis is used in that direction, and now those who were supposed to suffer most are getting through, not unharmed but unscathed, they try to get things back on rails and move to another provocation, who knows what. They used Al Qaeda in Afghanistan against the Soviets and they are ready to use, and they have already vastly infiltrated them, Al Qaeda tomorrow anywhere it could be useful to block those who are not playing their game, to impose havoc and chaos anywhere they can. They will even manipulate elections in order to bring social upheaval here and electoral discredit there. It is the state within. This film is a masterpiece because it shows western private companies are hiring mercenaries in one western country in order to destabilize and manipulate another western country in order to get the war they want in some far away oil heaven and underdeveloped country. Only the BBC can come up with such political fiction.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
DVD Review: Excellent Political Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
I rented this mini-series several months ago and enjoyed it so much I bought a copy. Although on second viewing I found a few quibbles with the way some characters were written, I also found quite a number of subtle pieces of information that made the repeat viewing more fun than the first. I kept thinking of the cliche "keeps you on the edge of your seat". As an old fan of Cagney and Lacey, I enjoyed seeing Sharon Gless as the U.S. Secretary of State; and as a newer fan of the Harry Potter flicks, it was fun watching Jason Isaacs play the protagonist. I highly recommend this DVD.DVD Review: BBC Action At Its Best!
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent BBC miniseries. If you enjoyed MI-5, you'll likely find this production just as complex, fast-paced, and engaging. The cast and characters are intriguing and the story is timely and plausible. Initially, my wife and I rented this series. We enjoyed it so much we purchased the 2-disc set. Well done BBC!DVD Review: Behind the headlines
Summary: 5 Stars
"The State Within" was made by a British company and set in the USA - Washington, DC. It is shot in a documentary style, in six parts. As the story develops, there are apparently disjointed elements that cause the viewer to wonder what that has to do with the story, but when they start pulling all the elements together, the view has one of those "Oh, my gosh" moments. It is scary to think that this may have much more truth in it than fiction. Excellent performances by every member of the cast.
Description of The State Within
Can you believe what your superiors tell you -- even if you are the British Ambassador to America? In this high octane, action-packed conspiracy thriller, a terrifying plot is played out along the dark corridors of power. When a flight explodes in mid-air over Washington D.C., the British Embassy finds itself enveloped in a diplomatic catastrophe. What happens next is a cat's cradle of tangled affinities and conflicting interests told through interlinking stories that unfold as British Ambassador Mark Brydon slowly realizes that he is being played by an invisible puppeteer with great power.Leave it to British TV to deliver the slickest, most intense take on terrorism on U.S. soil (with apologies to 24, of course). The State Within is a BBC production of the highest order, tense, dense, and absolutely riveting. The miniseries starts with a bang--actually, a horribly realistic explosion of a U.S. airliner bound for London, and the production values are every bit as detailed and impressive as any big-screen action film. Chunks of plane and passengers fall along the freeway outside Dulles airport in Washington, creating havoc and collateral damage in a truly visceral fashion. And then the real action begins. Our hero is Sir Mark Brydon, British ambassador to Washington, played with sangfroid by Jason Isaacs (slightly reminiscent of Daniel Craig as James Bond). Sir Mark has not only an international crisis on his hands, but quickly learns treachery, deceit, and murder lurk within the governments he's learned to trust. The plot is complex but extremely satisfying, far superior than most mass-market thrillers released in theaters in the U.S. Especially delicious is a small but key role as the U.S. Secretary of Defense by Cagney & Lacey's Sharon Gless, whose eyes glitter like shards of ice. Savor The State Within, but be prepared to be rattled the next time you go to the airport--or try to go to sleep. --A.T. Hurley
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