3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Exterritorial

2025,  Christian Zübert (Bad Banks) -- Netflix

Are the Americans the Bad Guys? Right now, if you refer to the exposed parts of American culture by way of The News and Social Media, they are very much indeed. The rhetoric I expose myself to, and that is the salient point, shows me a non-stop barrage of anger and lunacy and the erosion of any progressive moves made over the last... 50 years? I am sure if was, like so many must be, only exposed to another line of rhetoric, I would see the current actions as America clawing back its own identity from those who would change it -- they are getting their country back from the woke, the immigrants, the foreigners, the non-Xians, the sexually Other-ed. But like them, I only really pay attention to what solidifies my world viewpoint, one grown by our adjacency, our shared cultures, our own unified medias, our shared pop cultures.

Kent just wrote about the Bourne movies, where the security forces (CIA+) are most definitely setup as the Bad Guys. They manipulate, they alter, they kill, they interfere all for their own own idealized belief systems under a mask of patriotism. But these are stories told by Americans, to Americans, embraced by Americans. I wonder how the landscape of such movies will change over the next few years, as narratives like Bourne are shouted down or just entirely misunderstood.

This movie is a German movie set inside an American Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. Sara Wulf (Jeanne Goursaud, The Magic Flute), ex-soldier, and her son, are going there to be processed for emigration to the US. She has a job offer. Josh (Rickson Guy da Silva), her son, is impatient and... well, a kid, so she drops him in a playroom while she waits her turn. When she returns he is nowhere to be found, and the seemingly helpful consulate staff start by assisting her, but end up accusing her of being... well, nuts. They show her footage of her arrival, and there is no boy with her. At this point, Sara's PTSD and training kicks in. She releases herself from confinement, and begins to investigate on her own. Someone is hiding her son from her, and doing their best to manipulate the situation. There is a conspiracy at play.

The consulate staff is depicted as helpful, but we the viewers know something is going on, that there is a conspiracy, with maybe a slight hint of unreliable narrator. Initially I suspected this movie might be a depiction of an America the world can no longer trust. The staff are represented by a not-American, but a German security head named Erik Kynch (Dougray Scott, Mission: Impossible II).  He is supported by the hulking American soldier, Sergeant Donovan. In non-North American movies, US forces are always depicted as an integrated force: men, women, black, white. Donovan is black, and he could represent that integrated force, or he could also be a European hint of xenophobia. Yeah, I see ulterior motives and cultural narratives around every corner. Again, I don't know much about the German people beyond what I see in pop culture and the news, but I do know the film industry relatively well, and know that every casting choice says something.

In the end, the movie was less than I thought it would be (hoped it would be?) as no, America is not the Bad Guy. Yes, there are things going on, but the American people (the rest of the staff in the consulate) are as much a pawn of the conspiracy at play as Sara and Josh are. Its a capable action-thriller and Goursaud is really wrapped in the character. The fight scenes are a bit clumsy, seeking to remind one of Leitch-Hargrave styles, but were just unfortunately filmed too slow, literally letting you see the choreography at play. But in the end it was a satisfying middling movie, that didn't have me wondering (again) why I even watched it.

But I still do wish the movie had eaten the whole cake and had American as the Bad Guy. I need my dose of confirmation bias.