‘Looming Tower’ a compelling look at events leading up to 9 /11
Hulu’s “The Looming Tower” — based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book by Lawrence Wright — stars Jeff Daniels and Peter Sarsgaard in a fascinating dramatization of events that trace the rising threat of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s.
What’s striking about the limited series, and Wright’s book, is that both the counter-terrorism divisions in the FBI and the CIA agreed that Bin Laden was an imminent threat to the U.S.
They were at loggerheads, however, when it came to how to take down the terrorist leader. In this miniseries, the agencies are in a turf war over information. That, and political infighting, may have ultimately hindered their desire to prevent an attack on American soil.
So in that respect, “The Looming Tower” is a cautionary tale, but it also illustrates the importance U.S. intelligence agencies play in the defense of the country as well as the bravery of the agents.
The series is executiveproduced by documentarian Alex Gibney (the Emmy-winning “Going Clear” and Oscar-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side”), Dan Futterman (screenplays for “Capote” and “Foxcatcher”), and Wright.
Daniels plays the reallife John O’Neill, the head of the FBI’s I-49 Squad in New York. He’s a largerthan-life guy. Separated but unwilling to divorce his wife because of his Catholic background, he nevertheless has several girlfriends.
When it comes to his pursuit of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, he is dogged and tough-minded, but often finds he is in a battle with the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in Washington, D.C., headed by a fictionalized character named Martin Schmidt (Sarsgaard).
In the series, the bearded CIA analyst Schmidt is fanatical about guarding any intelligence the agency has obtained, believing that only the CIA had the skills to deal with Bin Laden. He is convinced the U.S. is already at war, and that military action is needed, arguing for air strikes on Al-Qaeda training bases.
O’Neill, on the other hand, saw the terrorists as criminals who should be rounded up and brought to justice. He feared that military attacks and the inevitable civilian casualties would rally more converts to Al-Qaeda’s cause, which did prove to be the case.
The FBI veteran works with his protégé, a young Muslim-American agent Ali Soufan (Tahar Rahim, “A Prophet”), one of the few in the FBI who were fluent in Arabic. O’Neill hopes Soufan can see what others don’t because of their unfamiliarity with the language and culture.
Occasionally, “The Looming Tower” is clumsy in melding the personal lives of the characters with their professional selves. An important phone call interrupting an agent during a sexual encounter seems gratuitous, but thankfully there are few such moments.
There are artistic liberties. Futterman has joked that they had to reduce the number of O’Neill’s girlfriends in order to make it a comprehensible story. But overall, whatever license taken doesn’t detract or alter the story in significant ways.
Daniels — who is having a tremendous run after his performance in Netflix’s “Godless” — is excellent embodying this complicated, sometimes contradictory agent.
For those who haven’t seen him before, Rahim is a revelation. As an outsider thrust into an insider’s role, the actor gives his character both sensitivity and grit.
Bill Camp, who has the rumpled look down, is excellent as a fictional FBI agent, and Wrenn Schmidt has her moments as a CIA analyst who learned from her time on the Russia desk. Michael Stuhlbarg, who is in seemingly everything these days, portrays Clinton security adviser Richard Clarke, and Alec Baldwin is CIA chief George Tenet, giving heft to the cast.
“The Looming Tower” is compelling television, even as it marches toward its tragic end.