Jack Bauer still has it

Listening to Rush Limbaugh during lunch today talking about 24 reminded me that I have yet to blog about Sunday night’s two hour movie. 24 Redemption gave us the classic Jack Bauer, a man willing to sacrifice his own personal interests for the benefit of those around him, and demonstrates that the 24 franchise (unlike James Bond) is alive and well.

The movie began in the middle of Africa where Bauer had been spending the past year hiding from a subpoena forcing him to appear before then American Congressional committee to answer for the complaints against him in his work at the Counter Terrorist Unit. There he found himself in the middle of a military coup and gave up his freedom to help a group of African children board one of the last helicopters leaving the American embassy.

In 24 Redemption, the writers changed certain things about the show but kept the main ingredients that made the show great. In the eighteen months since the last season ended, I became concerned about the future directions of the show because of criticism from liberals who object to its portrayal of torture. In the movie, the writers answered those critics by introducing issues that they care about such as genocide in Africa and children being forced into the military. Yet the rest of the show remained unchanged. The writers even embedded a “wink and nod” to conservatives by having Jack Bauer give a very clever response to a United Nations peacekeeper who was getting in the way of fighting the bad guys.

There was one scene, however, that I found totally absurd and I blame the product placement people and not the writers. When Jack’s friend discovered that a coup was underway and called to tell Jack to evacuate the children, both characters were speaking on cell phones with the Sprint Nextel logos displayed prominently. Somehow we are supposed to believe that these phones don’t work in major American cities and yet they work in the jungles in the middle of Africa.

For those of us who have spent more than a year waiting for Jack Bauer’s return, 24 Redemption was true redemption indeed.