''Homeland Security'' is a 2004 American

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

about the creation of the

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

in response to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

. It was directed by

Daniel Sackheim Daniel Sackheim (born in 1962) is an American television and film director, producer, and photographer. Sackheim has produced and directed for ''The X-Files'', ''Law & Order'', ''House'' and ''NYPD Blue''. He also directed '' The Walking Dead,'' ...

, written by Christopher Crowe, and stars Scott Glenn and

Tom Skerritt Thomas Roy Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962. He is known for his film roles in ''M*A*S*H'', ''Alien'', '' The Dead Zone'', '' Top Gun'', '' A ...

. Originally produced for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

as a

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

for a series that never materialized, it instead aired on NBC as a stand-alone film on April 11, 2004.

Plot

Admiral Theodore McKee is retired, when following the events of 9/11 he receives a call from the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

informing him that his commander in chief requires him to serve his country once again. Shortly after this he is sworn into office as a senior member of the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) under

Tom Ridge Thomas Joseph Ridge (born August 26, 1945) is an American politician and author who served as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security from 2001 to 2003, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. ...

. Once in office Admiral McKee faces the challenge of organizing this new office so as to prevent further terrorist attacks against the United States. With this in mind Admiral McKee's wife, Elise, recommends he speak to his friend,

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

agent Sol Binder. Following a meeting with Binder, McKee recruits him into OHS. After which Binder comes up with a plan for the new agency, all law enforcement agencies within the United States will have to put their rivalries aside and funnel all intelligence into the OHS. We first meet Binder at the beginning of the film prior to the events of 9/11, where he is meeting with a group of NSA agents with intelligence on a planned terrorist attack that is to take place in the United States where the number Nine and Eleven keep popping up, it is not until the day of the attacks that Binder was able to piece it together. It is Binder's belief that had there been a cooperative organization such as the OHS, the attacks could have been averted. While the main concern of the film is the establishment of the OHS, which following Congress' approval would become the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

(DHS), there are a number of subplots, out of chronological sequence, involved in the film. Such subplots include the

invasion of Afghanistan In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operations ...

, use of precision-guided air strikes with weapons such as

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

-guided

JDAMs The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or "dumb bombs", into all-weather precision-guided munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Pos ...

, the Customs agent on the

Canadian border Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

stopping the vehicle carrying explosives for the attempted Millennium bombing, the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and the destruction of Al'Qaeda training camps in the Middle East, as well as in the beginning of the film. Admiral McKee's daughter, Melissa, is due to leave New Jersey for San Francisco on September 11, 2001, on

United Airlines Flight 93 United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in S ...

. Following hearing an announcement on the news that United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked and has gone down over Pennsylvania, the Admiral and his wife are distraught; shortly thereafter she contacts her parents to tell them she was late and had fortunately missed her flight. That is not all Melissa saw that day. After

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...

was attacked, military command had received the executive order to investigate various aircraft that were off course, including Melissa's later flight, and to shoot down any that failed to comply with visual command. In a fictional engagement, three military jets engage the airliner, setting off the near collision alarm, one positioning itself in front of the airliner, another to the left. The nervous jet pilot behind the airliner nearly shoots it down before the airliner pilots comply with visual command and respond. The jet pilot is ordered to stand down, take a deep breath, and escort the airliner to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, where Melissa first vigorously demands to know if they had almost been shot down. From a pay phone, Melissa called her parents and her boyfriend. Melissa demands from her mother, "Who is doing this to us?"

Cast

Production

picked up the pilot in January 2003. Filming took place in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

Reception

The film was poorly received and was cancelled even before it started as a TV show. As one review said "And don't be fooled by names like Tom Skerritt and Scott Glenn; ''Homeland Security'' is a bland and fairly tasteless bullet-point history lesson on how the 9/11 attacks happened, how a bunch of generic TV characters deal with it, and how many soaring musical strains can be employed while the rah-rah chest-thumping speechifying goes on in front of a flapping American flag." (DVDtalk.com)

Home release

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Homeland Security 2004 television films 2004 films 2004 drama films 2000s American films 2000s English-language films American drama television films Films based on the September 11 attacks Films directed by Daniel Sackheim Films produced by Clayton Townsend Films shot in Los Angeles Films with screenplays by Christopher Crowe (screenwriter) NBC network original films Paramount Pictures films Television pilots not picked up as a series