The Looming Tower (2018)

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Siskoid
It's actually kind of strange to see the events leading up to 9/11 shown in The Looming Tower as if it were a Clancy or Le Carré adaptation. Personally, I could have done without this much of the "personal lives" stuff that's meant to bring real and imagined/composited persons to life. These were often the weakest part of the 10 episodes, and probably the most fictionalized. The exception would be the FBI agent Ali Sufan (Tahar Rahim), who through life and work plays a big role in the exculpation of Islam itself in these events, and is the most engaging "character". The mini-series frustrating thesis is that terrorists got through the cracks because of a pissing match between the CIA and the FBI, with the show (so probably the book it's based on) pointedly taking the FBI's side, while also ferreting out all the ironies it can, in particular describing cults of personality that mirror Al-Qaeda's to Bin Laden. An engrossing biopic that exposes the U.S.'s systemic failure, it does use some news footage as part of its narrative, but 9/11 itself is tastefully depicted as tense prologue and smoky aftermath - I say this in case, the incident itself is a trigger for would-be viewers. 2 years 8 months ago