against all enemies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Lambs just aren't enough for Robert Redford. On November 8, Lions for Lambs hits theaters, the Redford-directed/starring drama about a professor, journalist, and senator in Washington during the battle in Afghanistan (check out the trailer here). Now, because you can't be tired of war, mess-ups, and political drama yet, Variety reports that he's set for more with an adaptation of Richard A. Clarke's memoir, Against All Enemies. Clarke was the counterterrorism adviser for three presidents, and his book criticizes the Bush administration's actions before and after 9/11.

Jamie Vanderbilt wrote the screenplay, and the film is being produced by John Calley under Capitol Films. (Columbia Pictures used to have it, but they had slipped it into turnaround.) However, ol' Red's involvement depends on financing. I imagine they'll pull it together -- especially if they plan to get it out before the 2008 elections. While George W. Bush might not be running again, there's nothing like a little incendiary cinema to heat things up.

The memoir doesn't lack for troubling claims, although these days, many of them have become widely accepted. Clarke says there was a lot of terrorist "chatter" before 9/11, and that he kept making requests for meetings about his information. After the dreaded date, the ex-adviser claims Bush asked him to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved, and when he wrote a report saying there was no evidence to support that, he was told to "update and resubmit" the document. And the big one -- that the war on terror that led to the invasion of Iraq played into Osama bin Laden's hands, rather than hurting Al-Qaeda.

Something happened to Paul Haggis while he was on his way to directing a follow-up to last year's Academy Award-winning Crash. The helmer was supposed to be taking on an adaptation of Richard Clarke's 9/11expose Against All Enemies, in which Sean Penn and Vince Vaughn were reportedly set to star. However, now it seems he's switched course and, instead, is setting his eyes on a pic called The Garden of Elah.

According to Variety, Elah will star Tommy Lee Jones as the father of a man who mysteriously goes missing after returning home from Iraq. The lovely Charlize Theron is set to play a local police detective who's put in charge of investigating the disappearance. Haggis also wrote the screenplay, which is based on a Playboy magazine article called Death and Dishonor. The director has already begun scouting locations hoping to begin production towards the end of this year. No word yet on what this means for Against All Enemies, though I suspect that project is still moving forward ... at a much slower pace.

There's nothing more fun to watch than another attempt by Hollywood to crucify the Bush administration. Look, I'm not a political guy. I don't have an agenda. As long as I can wake up each morning, inject a dose of caffeine into my brain and write about movies, I'm not complaining. However, if my President somehow screws that up, well, I will not be a happy camper.

When we first reported on Paul Haggis' decision to move forward with a big screen adaptation of Richard A. Clarke's Against All Enemies, the biggest question on our minds was not "Why is he doing this?" Instead, we wanted to know who the Oscar winning director would cast. Dennis Quaid as President Bush? Queen Latifah is pretty tough, perhaps we can throw her into the role of Condoleezza Rice? And then there were the parts of Richard Clarke and his partner in crime, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. You'll remember, O'Neill backed up Clarke's "blame the Bush administration" story with his own testimony.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Haggis wants Vince Vaughn to play Paul O'Neill. Yes, Vince Vaughn. While the 'Old School' and 'Dodgeball' star has not yet signed on the dotted line, Haggis has had discussions with the actor, but needs to wait until Columbia Pictures finishes off the budget. Also, though nothing has been made official, Sean Penn is rumored to have snagged the Richard Clarke role. As always, we'll keep you updated.

According to ABC News reports last night, Sean Penn has been cast as the lead in the Paul Haggis-directed screen version of Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Though we rarely get casting reports from broadcast news outlets, Nikki Finke of LA Weekly points out that, since Clarke works as an analyst for ABC, the network was unusually well-positioned for this scoop.

Interestingly, Finke also reports that Penn -- who she describes, somewhat regretfully, as "box office poison" -- was far from Sony's first choice for the role. Instead, the studio first approached both Al Gore's Chief Justice Penn's fellow liberal activist George Clooney and Russell Crowe, both of whom (presumably) were unavailable. While the Clooney thing isn't exactly surprising (Honestly, right now, what studio wouldn't want him to star in its film? Plus, it's a political project in which one could understandably assume he might be interested.), the approach of Crowe is interesting, and suggests that Jeffery Wells' script review -- he described the film as a tight, possibly-great political thriller -- was probably pretty accurate (who casts Crowe these days in something that's not really, really serious?).

I reported last week about the upcoming screen version of Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies, to be directed by Crash's Paul Haggis, and wondered at the time who on earth would play the real-life politicians who figure so prominently in the story. Jeffery Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere has had a look at a late (possibly final) draft of the script and answers one of my questions - George W. Bush appears only off-screen, so at least he doesn't need to be cast.

Wells came away deeply impressed by James Vanderbilt's screenplay, which he describes as "gripping" and "pared-to-the-bone." And, despite the fact that the movie's action consist primarily of "men and women in suits jawing with each other about strategy", he feels it has the potential to be a truly great political film, on par with Alan J. Pakula's stunning All the President's Men. So yeah, it's safe to say that he liked it.

One interesting tidbit in Wells' article is his sincere suggestion that Bill Clinton consider playing himself in the movie - according to Wells, the Clinton "character" is so well-written (he's not portrayed as a hero by any means, but nevertheless comes across as a warm, intelligent person) that no one who isn't the former president could convincingly play him. While this seems incredibly unlikely, I have to admit that it's an engaging idea. And hey, if Clinton agreed to appear, maybe they could get Condoleeza Rice to play herself too! And Dick Cheney!

Picking a project to follow up the either trite or brilliant Crash (and, since it won best picture, no one really cares about the haters, do they?), writer/director Paul Haggis has gone in an interesting direction: he's in final talks to direct Against All Enemies, an adaptation of Richard A. Clarke's condemnation of the Bush administration's handling of the threat posed by al-Qaida. Though Haggis won't be writing the screenplay himself, he's expected to "supervise" the next draft, which is in the hands of James Vanderbilt. Haggis himself is currently writing and will direct Death and Dishonor for Warner Brothers, and it's not clear which project will be made first.

Aside from its intensely political nature, what's interesting about a movie version of Clarke's memoir is its cast: George W. Bush, for example, is sort of a main character in the thing. Is Columbia actually going to hire someone to play him? What about Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld? While I'd be the first to admit that such a thing could work (Nixon, which is packed to the gills with portrayals of well-know politicians, is fantastic), the fact that the central figures of Clarke's book are still in the public eye complicates things. Will we, for example, be able to see a Bush on screen without giggling, and thinking immediately of SNL?