By ElaineB
Concerned that some of us would forget Jack Bauer (as if we ever could), FOX released the two-hour stand-alone film 24: Redemption in November. It was good rather than great, offering a look at how Jack was dodging congressional subpoenas while trying to atone for his past excesses by working with his friend and ex-agent Carl who ran a combination school and orphanage in the fictitious African nation of Sengala.
Unfortunately, bad guys are everywhere in Africa and soon Jack and Carl are struggling to get the orphans to the capital city to make a flight out of the nation before it falls into chaos.
So here are things you should know from the film in order to get the most from Day 7:
President-elect Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) is stuck between a rock and hard place. In Redemption, she wants to do what lame-duck President Noah Daniels refuses to do and intervene in Sengala to prevent genocide. But her hands are tied because she has not been sworn in yet. Daniels believes the U.S. should not intervene as Sengala offers absolutely no benefit to the U.S. and so orders our embassy there closed.
Financier Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight) is providing arms to Col. Juma, the rebel leader in Sengala. He also offers troops but Juma says he can use child soldiers instead. Illegal arms dealing is likely done all the time in the high reaches of international trading but troops at the ready really stretches reality. But this is 24, after all, and bad guys with lots of money always have plenty of weapons and friends in high places. Jonas is no exception. His power reaches into the secret service itself. It isn’t clear how, or even if, Juma is paying him for the weapons or what use Sengala is to Hodges, but like Bernie Madoff, he may be doing it mostly because he can and gets a kick out of flaunting his power. I suspect 24 will offer a better rationale, but these days with the real life goings on, they wouldn’t have to.
Hodges does business with a finance firm which plans to cover his illegal dealings by destroying the records of his transactions. Unfortunately, corporate bigwigs never know how to do those things themselves, and always have lackeys to do the dirty work and take the fall if things go wrong. So the head of the firm asks employee Chris to, in essence, delete from hard drive, shred and then burn the records. Of course, with an order like this Chris gets suspicious. AND his best friend is Roger Taylor (I kept thinking, “Roger, Taylor,” as in “over and out” whenever his full name was mentioned), President-Elect Allison Taylor’s son. Chris and Roger share 12-step programs, and Chris introduced Roger to his wife, who still works at the same firm as he does (I expect this to be VERY important in Day 7).
Chris contacts Roger on the day Roger’s mom is being sworn in, and later sends him a copy of the records. Even as he sends it, agents of Hodges are at Chris’s apartment. They question him in ways that will ensure he answers, so of course he tells them about friend Roger before they off him. That isn’t shown, but his body is being carried away at the end of the film, so he must have told the bad guys everything he knew or he would still be alive.
Evacuating the embassy creates the main tension in Redemption, as Bauer, friend Carl and the orphans rush toward the capitol city to board a helicopter to take the kids to safety. Along the way, Carl steps on a landmine and, in the most poignant scene in the film, takes Jack’s gun and holds off Juma’s soldiers while Jack gets the kids away. They hear an explosion and know Carl is dead. On the way, Jack negotiates a deal with the U.S. He will turn himself in if the kids can be taken to safety. The film ends with Jack and the kids in the helicopter as the frightened natives of Sengala rush into the embassy. So, with Juma and the rebellion figuring into the plot of Day 7, expect that Jack will take a lot of the dastardly dealings personally.
Day 7 opens with Jack on his first day at the congressional hearings on the illegal activities of the disbanded CTU. After what he’s been through in Africa, will we see a kinder, gentler Jack Bauer, one who will show remorse for what he had to do in the name of our security? Ah, you idealistic peace flag waving fools, of course not.
As a political aside, there was an interesting piece on one of the cable news channels on the use of torture and other extreme means to get confessions. The general interviewed made the point that in a “24-type scenario” with a bomb ticking somewhere, he would do what was necessary but take the consequences. That’s always been the theme of 24, and while we wish Jack would get the medal he so deserves, this season should be no exception.
