Thoughts about Hub and Devereaux
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Siege
servercat — 21 years ago(April 22, 2004 06:14 AM)
I was watching this movie last night(its one of my favorites
)and it got me thinking about some things. So i started a discussion thread at another site and got some interesting responses. So lets see how it is here 
The only problem i've ever had with the film was the ending. It ends in what seems to me a bad note. Though the final terror cell is stopped, Bruce Willis's character General Devereaux is placed under arrest for his use of force and controversial methods. Too me this didn't seem right.
Personally I was supportive of Devereaux's methods, they were harsh but seemingly effective(Though I will have to concede that for it to be perfect, all the terrorists had to be of Arab lineage. Which they all were, but you don't find that out till the end.)
The other thing that annoyed me was that, (I'm no lawyer, nor a military buff. So my understandings are probably shaky, but anyhoo) I didn't see how Hubbard could legally place Devereaux under arrest. When the city was placed under seige, it was under an order of Martial law. If I am correct, this suspends constituional rights and the military is answerable only to itself(and way up the TO, the president.)
To be honest, I've always got the feeling that Hub and Eliza actually made things worse. Going on the assumption that all of the terrorists where of Arab linage(which is not reallly realisticbut that is another nitpick all together), then it's quite possible that Deveraux could have stopped Samir days ahead of when he surfaced.
That's my thought, how about you all? -
DarkNexus — 21 years ago(April 25, 2004 07:32 PM)
I want to respond to you, and I won't call you right or wrong, I just want to put down my opinion
Yes, Devereaux's methods were effective. But at what cost? This movie is about this: how far are we willing to go when we are afraid? What are we willing to give up to remove it? In The Siege, it got to the point where we became a police state. His methods were effective, but it cost us our freedom. You can either go after a fly with a fly-swatter (Hub), hunting it down until you catch it. Or you can level the house. The latter method seems silly, right? But not to the person doing it.
America is not perfect. Our system has loopholes and problems that prevent our law enforcement from giving out justice efficiently. But we have to trust in that system. I think that freedom is worth being afraid sometimes, that the first amendment is worth being offended sometimes. When a society becomes so afraid that it gives up something that millions of people died to protect, there is something terribly wrong. And it's happening today, with the patriot act, and now some senators want to instate an amendment that doesn't allow homosexual marriage. When you watch this movie, you have to ask yourself: how far is too far? Will you allow yourself to become so frightened one day that, when someone says to you, "I can take the fear away, if only you will give up your freedom," you will actually consider it? I would much rather die free, than live in chains caused by irrational fear.
"Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it."- Dalai Lama -
DreTam2000 — 21 years ago(April 27, 2004 07:42 PM)
The man murdered and tortured an American citizen. CASE CLOSED
I don't give a s#it how right-winged you are, the man was a cruel general who went over the line. And Denzel got his number at the end!
It's as simple as that. And I absolutely loved this movie.
I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way -
omarso — 21 years ago(July 14, 2004 09:03 PM)
devereux did what he did because he was sure that Terrik knew where the other cell was. even Elise did nothing to disuade him. In fact she helped come up with ways to torture him and it is hinted that her motives were not as pure. If Terrik wanted to, he could expose Elise as the one who helped train him and smuggled him into the US. Thyat said, Terik Housini was one of the terrorists who was planning another attack, so he has no sympathy with me.
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bananian — 21 years ago(November 21, 2004 02:51 AM)
Umm wasn't it in the movie that it was Samir who said Tariq was the fourth cell?
In the end Tariq new nothing and was executed after torture. Even Elise came out of the room and said to Hub that he knew nothing then you hear the gun shot sound. -
omarso — 20 years ago(January 07, 2006 07:46 PM)
Both Hub and Elise knew that Terik was one of the terrorists. When Elise said that Terik knew nothing, she meant that he knew nothing about the other cells, since they operated independently. Therefore Tarik is still a very guilty party. Terik was ready to make a brake for it when he realized the FBI were after him. Also one of his men had a grenade on him that killes a number of FBI agents = Tarik is not an innocent bysander in this.
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doof14 — 17 years ago(September 07, 2008 01:31 AM)
I interpreted it differently. I took her saying "he knew nothing" to mean that he was an innocent. That certianly was the way the rest of the film seemed to be going
"Shred the constitutionjust a little bit"
As to the original question: I believe it goes back to questions that westerns raised considering vililantieism. The problem of taking the law into your own hands is that it undermines the authority of the law. The problem with unconstitutional action is that it makes it less bad.
For further reading: Michael Ignatieff: The Lesser Evil: political ethics in an age of terror. -
pevans0 — 20 years ago(February 19, 2006 03:11 PM)
So, if one man knew of a plot to kill 1000 children (including yours), and that man was an American citizen, you wouldn't want wood shoved under his finger nails for answers? Would you want his civil liberties to be protected at your childs expense? It really is an easy answer.
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the_la_baker — 11 years ago(October 07, 2014 01:12 PM)
So, if one man knew of a plot to kill 1000 children (including yours), and that man was an American citizen, you wouldn't want wood shoved under his finger nails for answers? Would you want his civil liberties to be protected at your childs expense? It really is an easy answer.
What about 2 men, or 10, or 100? Where do you draw the line?
That is the point. Once you go down that road, horrible things are going to happen.
I think most people would like some sort of laws regarding procreation, but once you go down that road you start getting to some really ambiguous forks in the road with potentially malevolent ethical implications.
America tried it, the Nazis copied us, and then we abandoned our eugenics program. -
yo_el_padrino-982-288755 — 11 years ago(March 25, 2015 02:48 AM)
For me the line ends with my family, and anyone I like personally in my life.
The problem is, that everyone reasons this way and thus to some faceless nobody who I couldn't care less for, I'm also a faceless nobody who he couldn't care less for, it's the problem of living in such large groups, we aren't programmed to live in such big tribes -
the_la_baker — 10 years ago(May 26, 2015 11:41 PM)
For me the line ends with my family, and anyone I like personally in my life.
And how about the people that are related and personally know the person you are torturing/killing? Under your rationale they could now do the same in retaliation.
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-Martin Luther King, Jr. -
DarrenDirt — 9 years ago(April 18, 2016 03:32 PM)
Along those same lines of thinking/controversy also see Unthinkable (2010). Not exactly a black-or-white issue, handled quite "realistically" (I would presume).
Chipping away at a mountain of pop culture trivia,
Darren Dirt. -
RynoII — 15 years ago(October 28, 2010 02:34 PM)
If Deveraux only answers to the President, maybe The President was outraged at how far Deveraux went, and ordered him placed under arrested. The word got to Hub and Hub was all too happy to slap the cuffs on him himself.
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ave_roma2004 — 11 years ago(March 17, 2015 03:49 AM)
The man murdered and tortured an American citizen. CASE CLOSED
I don't give a s#it how right-winged you are, the man was a cruel general who went over the line. And Denzel got his number at the end!
It's as simple as that. And I absolutely loved this movie.
You're wrong. Case closed.
You're a sheltered nobody who is protected on a daily basis by people who will harm other human beings on your behalf.
You're not pragmatic enough to be successful in either politics or the military, obviously.
The old saying "Free a hundred guilty men so that one innocent man doesn't suffer" doesn't apply in the real world. In the real world, calculations are made that determine risk vs reward, and the worth of a human life.
If one innocent person is tortured to death to potentially save hundreds of lives, that's an acceptable loss. If you do not agree, then stay behind your computer screen being protected by soldiers, taking comfort in the thought that you're a worthless person.
At first I assumed that the people who cry foul are all worthless teenagers who don't understand the world, then I realized something - those teenagers grow up to be fairies who would be getting raped, beheaded, beaten, enslaved, executed, etc, without the militaristic people they condemn.
Enjoy the freedom to presume you can judge another person for doing something that your pansy little soul couldn't handle. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the side of the fence that would kill you without hesitation.
Disclaimer: I do not claim a political faction or leaning. I do not care about who the president is, nor do I advocate social programs/cutthroat capitalism. I am simply making observations about a spoiled portion of the American population who have blinders on to the real world and how it works. -
servercat — 21 years ago(April 27, 2004 10:10 PM)
It is a fine line between peace of mind and Big Brother. I think the movie did a nice job of going over thisstill though. I think Hub messed things up more then anything else
I don't think Deveraux was as blood thirsty as most people seem to make him out to be. He said himself that he was hesitant to use the miltary to control the situation and I also got the impression that he was holding himself back giving Hub a chance to put an end to it.
cest la vie Awesome film and thanks for the responses ^_^
-Servercat -
roguewookiee — 21 years ago(May 01, 2004 01:46 PM)
I don't know if anyone remembers but the people begged Devereaux to come into New York city. That is one reason why we don't let the Military operate inside our borders loke that. Like he said the army is a broadsword not a scalpel. In my opinion they should have run checks on everyone of that nationality coming in from another countries if something seemed fishy investigate and if you know certainly that they were terrorists then you either send in the FBI unless they are all dead and then they have anti-terrorist teams trained to take out cells for example Navy SEALs which would have been better than the Army. I don't disagree with Dx's methods he warned them it would happen and he did his job.