Hollywood Reporter: The Path to 9/11 - review with production credits

By Ray Richmond

Bottom line: An elaborate, provocative -- and some say misrepresentative -- depiction of the events that led to the devastation of Sept. 11.

8-11 p.m. Sunday and 8-10 p.m. Monday
ABC

That this two-night miniseries has turned into far more than a mere fictionalized lead-up-to-Sept. 11 rehash has grown increasingly clear over the past few days. It's now an incendiary political football that has sent the buzz meter racing throughout the blogosphere for its purportedly skewed depiction of events. That it also happens to be powerfully acted, artfully produced and shot like a truly riveting page-turner is sure to be overshadowed by the controversy it is generating.

Presented by the network without commercials over five hours (8-11 p.m. Sunday and 8-10:02 p.m. Monday) for what had been pegged originally as a six-hour project, ABC's "Path to 9/11" lays much of the blame at the feet of a priority-challenged President Clinton and CIA director George Tenet for not taking out Osama bin Laden when given the chance.

Yes, it was the Clinton administration's inattention to, and dismissing of, the Islamic threat that made everything go so terribly wrong -- a scenario that might have some truth to it but can't be as black and white as portrayed in this narrative, which is drawn from "The 9/11 Commission Report" in tandem with two other published sources, according to the credits. The producers (including exec producer Marc Platt and lead producer-writer Cyrus Nowrasteh) took liberties that ABC this week justified by pointing out that this was "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources."

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"Yes, it was the Clinton administration's inattention to, and dismissing of, the Islamic threat that made everything go so terribly wrong -- a scenario that might have some truth to it but can't be as black and white as portrayed in this narrative, which is drawn from "The 9/11 Commission Report" in tandem with two other published sources, according to the credits."

WTF does this idiot mean by starting the paragraph with "Yes"? God, if there's anyone I hate it's these jackasses who smugly pride themselves on being "fair."

I'm saving Ray Richmond's review of Path to 9/11 to my hard drive so I can use it as a teaching aid in developing critical thinking skills to spot distortion and propaganda.

Thank him for me.

this is a pretty bizarre way of acknowledging parts of this were fabricated.

...conservatives and BushCo want everyone to think happened, so the reviewer concludes with:

"To watch this mini is to witness Armageddon itself unfold, with the production's nimble camera-work affording viewers an unusually stark and intimate viewing experience. We're made to feel like rubberneckers peering through the gates of hell as acts of evil are perpetrated."

Don't worry, it is all made-up stuff folks. Just remember, it is purely for entertainment value as we honor the dead and glorify the grief of their families. Everyone will be able to feel good about the tragedy and then we can move on. Maybe CBS should air THX1138 and Fahrenheit 451, both fictionalized accounts of what America is becoming under BushCo/Cheney and the fascist republican-neoconservatives.