Diplomatic Siege
Diplomatic Siege
NR | 17 December 1999 (USA)
Diplomatic Siege Trailers

When Steve Mitchell is clandestinely sent to the US embassy in Bucharest, Romania to disarm a nuclear bomb that has secretly remained in the building since the end of the Cold War, little does he know that other problems will soon erupt. He must join Erica Long, a diplomatic attaché who is not all that she appears, to work together on setting the correct computer code that will disable the weapon and accomplish the mission. But while watching video monitors from inside a long-forgotten surveillance room, Steve witnesses a surprising deadly takeover of the building by the Serbian Liberation Front.

Reviews
Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Robert J. Maxwell No need to go on at any length about this marvelous example of a routine political/action B-movie thriller."Die Hard" was a great success in 1988. It had Bruce Willis, alone, crawling through ventilation shafts and sliding down elevator cables to rescue a dozen hostages from a gang of thieves. This is a flawed imitation. Instead of the Nakatomi Building, it's the American Embassy in Bucharest, and instead of Willis it's Weller. I couldn't bring myself to any appreciation of the production designers notion of the American Embassy in Bucharest. No, I couldn't, because I was once a guest at the American Embassy in Rumania. Not in real life but in a TV miniseries -- the inimitable and unforgettable "Rage of Angels", or was it "Windmills of the Gods"? I forget.The whole enterprise looks hastily cobbled together, using every cliché in the manual. There are the criss-crossing laser beams preventing access to the thermonuclear bomb about to explode in the basement. There is the son of the protagonist, a scared twelve-year old kid with a pistol to his temple. There is the steely eyed villain who snaps out orders or nods and who never smiles or blinks. They screwed up one minor cliché. The read-out on the atomic bomb is ticking down the seconds to detonation, as usual, but the numbers are white instead of the usual customary read.It's a whirling collage of improbabilities from top to bottom. Even the acting is below par for the professionals in the principal roles. Both Darryl Hannah and Peter Weller are better suited to light comedies or family movies. But I admire Peter Weller, for the same reason I have to admire anyone who can make a dent in completely independent career fields.Weller is a trumpeter who plays occasionally in a band, sometimes with Jeff Goldblum. He has a BA in theater and an MA and PhD in Italian Renaissance Art and Roman history and has taught at Syracuse University. He speaks fluent Italian. So what if he's not Lawerence Olivier? Can Olivier blow "Scrapple From the Apple"? I doubt it.
John Smith A very lame plot based on political thinking of the late 90s, that paints serbs as the bad guys...why they picked romainia for the "location of the embassy nuke" is beyond me since there was at one point an American embassy in yugoslaia and should have had a nuke as well...no matter. every aspect of the movie made it a poorly made b movie. i have to mention, when reading some reviews, i was more appalled by some of those than i was by this movie. a great example is the review "Beware 'low cost production' countries" written by "davidshort10"...i his review he says "..(by the way, Romania was not part of the Warsaw Pact..", but of course anyone who knows anything about the warsaw pact knows that romania was a proud member of that pact. another statement (made in 2006), "..and oh by the way Croatia is not a UN member country)", although crotia has been a member of the UN since 1992. you can watch the movie for free online, so you have nothing to lose but time.
somnolog This is a low-budget film based on poor directing, dumb script and unbelievable story line (after 9/11, but even before that, it is more clear who would blow up a US embassy). Acting is another story - no wonder that the cast has to resort to such projects. If I would have to see this film one more time, I would have to ask for a total anaesthesia.
Jolo-2 I'm usually a sucker for mindless action flicks, but this was an incredible waste of time, both for the actors involved and anybody who tried to watch. The military special effects are laughably fake, with colored smoke substituting for real explosions. I like Weller, Hannah, and Berenger, but even they cannot rise above this horrendous made-for-TV script. In fact, this was easily their worst film -- for all of them. When the actors do stop to give their lines, the result is often unintentionally humorous. There are far too many unnecessary plot elements, making the movie feel like 6 different scripts were thrown into a blender. The scenes stolen from other movies ranging from Mission Impossible to Toy Soldiers are immediately recognizable and come across as gratuitous and weak. It's just a shame. There was so much potential, instead it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.