A new government agency with the right to domestic charter is reformed to prevent another terrorist attack in the United States. In the early morning hours of 9/11 an elite CIA team known as Echelon 3 was denied access to Logan airport by the FBI, preventing them from acting on the intelligence that could have stopped the terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Echelon 3 team undeservedly took the fall and was quickly dismantled. Ten years later, with terrorist activities on the rise, a congressional shadow government committee known only as the Keepers, is re-instating the new and improved top secret unit now known as Echelon 8. The team is granted unprecedented approval of domestic charter allowing them to monitor U.S. communications and take every action necessary to protect the United States from the next terrorist attack. Can Echelon 8 prevent history form repeating itself or will the team suffer the same fate of its predecessor? The movie was a bit intriguing, but not exceptional. Non of the actors are very well known and their performances are not outstanding, though I would say they are good enough to keep the story moving. I guess it was the kind of movie that was on a budget, a number of scenes just seem a bit too fake for my tastes.<br/><br/>For example, in one scene there are two agents that are shooting at two terrorists who aren't very far away from them; the agents are standing still, and the terrorists are standing still. And yet it takes the agents about 10 attempts with rounds of fire back and forth before they actually take out their objectives. Makes you wonder how well they did their training! They are being portrayed as the best of the best in their field, but for suspense's sake they wind up looking a bit unprofessional. <br/><br/>And in another scene, two agents seem to have cornered their objective (a terrorist), but there is a sniper hiding behind them, who eventually shoots at one of the agents as a warning, wounding her in the arm, after which everyone goes on talking things over for another few minutes, as the terrorist warns them "you don't want to do this, or my sniper will take her out" etc. Uhm, if the sniper is behind both of them, and neither one has even turned around to try to take him out, couldn't he just take them both out in a flash instead of chatting away about whether they'll make it or not?<br/><br/>This movie has some potential, but would have been so much better if more attention was paid to keeping a more professional, efficient, action-packed portrayal of our heroes. There are ways of creating suspense without making it look fake… It is 2001. A secret government group is investigating something, and one of the agents has had to abandon his apartment because people were sent there to kill him.<br/><br/>It is obvious that before long this movie will reference September 11 in some way. And yes, we see some of the concepts familiar to those who paid attention to the investigation. Someone, for example, wants to learn how to fly but not how to take off or land.<br/><br/>Just before that terrible day, our heroes have figured out what is going to happen and are well on their way to stopping it. Early on that morning, they arrive at Boston's Logan Airport all set to stop the perpetrators. One solution would be to stop all flights, which seems impossible, but recall that George W. Bush was able to stop all commercial air traffic in the country a few hours later. But it doesn't matter. An FBI agent ejects our heroes from the building, and we all know what happened then.<br/><br/>Ten years later, the team is back together as a unit called Echelon 8. And they have a crisis even bigger than September 11, in terms of the total number of dead, even though it won't all happen at once. If they don't figure out what to do in time, the results will be disastrous. If they do stop the villains this time, they will at least partially redeem themselves for their failure years earlier.<br/><br/>There is plenty of excitement, and the potential for dire consequences if they mess up any of the many complicated steps in reaching the goal.<br/><br/>It's a pretty standard action thriller, and no one seemed familiar, so I didn't have that as a reason to enjoy the movie. I don't really remember standout performances.<br/><br/>But it's an interesting way to pass the time, I suppose.
Jaidahal replied
354 weeks ago