American Bomber

There is an ever growing fear of terrorism is the US, and American Bomber explores and feeds off that fear by positing that a disgruntled discharged soldier might become the next walking bomb.

The film is present in a documentary style, sort of. We get interviews with people who knew our bomber, John Hidell, interspersed with scenes of John himself doing things. So, not really a documentary. And while not the biggest problem with this movie, the decision to not make a drama or a fake documentary but to make both blended together was a poor one. This film might have worked as one or the other, but not the way it ended up.

We are supposed to care, I guess, that this guy loses his brother and then takes a backpack of explosives to New York to blow something up. But since the movie never quite makes itself feel anything other than artificial, I couldn't bring myself to worry at all that he might blow something up. And then he falls for a girl, and decides not to blow things up, at least until... well, just in case you decide you need to see this movie, I won't spoil it.

Slow, dull and in no way thought provoking, American Bomber is a movie. It was filmed and edited and now released. And that is about all I can say in regards to it: it's a movie. One you should probably skip.