''Strip Search'' is a drama film made for the HBO network, first aired on April 27, 2004. The film explores the status of

individual liberties Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society f ...

in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001 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 ...

and the approval of the

USA PATRIOT Act The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appro ...

. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet and written by '' Oz'' creator

Tom Fontana Tom Fontana (born September 12, 1951) is an American screenwriter, writer, and television producer. Fontana worked on NBC's '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' and created HBO's ''Oz.'' Early life and education Fontana was born on the west si ...

. It stars

Glenn Close Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, Close has garnered numerous accolades, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards ...

, Maggie Gyllenhaal,

Ken Leung Kenneth Leung (; born January 21, 1970) is an American actor. His roles include Sang in '' Rush Hour'', Miles Straume in ''Lost'', Admiral Statura in '' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'', and Eric Tao in HBO's ''Industry''. Early life Leung was ...

, Bruno Lastra and

Dean Winters Dean Gerard Winters (born July 20, 1964) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Ryan O'Reily on the HBO prison drama '' Oz'' and had roles in TV series'' Rescue Me'', ''30 Rock'', ''Sex and the City'' and '' Law & Order: Special Vict ...

. The film initially was screened at the

Monaco International Film Festival The Monaco International Film Festival is an annual international special interest film festival held in Monaco. It is a non-profit organization, formed in December 2003 and founded by Rosana Golden and Dean Bentley The festival focuses on non-viol ...

with Lumet presenting it in the presence of Fontana. Different cuts of the film exist. There is supposedly a two-hour version. German TV showed an 86-minute version. The version released on DVD in the U.S. is 56 minutes.

Plot

The film is built around two main parallel stories, each containing almost identical dialogues. One story line involves Linda Sykes (Gyllenhaal), an American woman detained in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, being interrogated by a military officer (Leung). In the other storyline, Sharif Bin Said (Lastra), an Arab man detained in New York City, is interrogated by two

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

agents (Winters and Close). Both characters are graduate students detained with no hard evidence and interrogated about unspecified activities which may or may not be related to

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

plots. In the course of the increasingly brutal interrogations, both Sykes and Bin Said are

strip search A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or al ...

ed against their will by their interrogators and are subjected to a

cavity search A body cavity search, also known simply as a cavity search, is either a visual search or a manual internal inspection of body cavities for prohibited materials (contraband), such as illegal drugs, money, jewelry, or weapons. Body cavities frequen ...

. In both cases the protagonists appear to have only tenuous connections with the suspected terrorist plots. The film ends with the question: "Must security and safety come at the price of freedom?"

Cast

as Karen Moore * Maggie Gyllenhaal as Linda Sykes *

as Liu Tsung-Yuan *Bruno Lastra as Sharif Bin Said *

as Ned McGrath *

Peter Jacobson Peter Jacobson (born March 24, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Dr. Chris Taub on the Fox medical drama series ''House''. He also starred on the USA Network science fiction drama ''Colony'' as former Proxy Snyd ...

as John Scanlon * Austin Pendleton as James Perley *

Tom Guiry Thomas John Guiry (born October 12, 1981) is an American actor. He is best known for his lead performance as Scott Smalls in the cult coming-of-age film '' The Sandlot,'' which he held at the age of 12, and his role in NBC crime drama ''The Black ...

as Gerry Sykes *

Fred Kohler Fred Kohler (April 20, 1888 – October 28, 1938) was an American actor. Career Fred Kohler was born in Kansas City, Missouri or in Dubuque, Iowa. As a teen, he began to pursue a career in vaudeville, but worked other jobs to support himself. ...

as Jimmy Briggs *

Christopher McCann Christopher McCann (born September 29, 1952) is an American theater, film and television actor. He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and won an Obie Award for his performance in the 1993 play ''The Lights'', written by Howard Korder. Car ...

as Nicholas Hudson *

Nelson Lee Nelson Lee (born October 16, 1975) is a Taiwanese-Canadian actor. He is best known for portraying Shen in '' Blade: The Series'' and Dragon King in '' Stargirl''. Life and career Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan on October 16, 1975. He starred in ...

as Xiu-Juan Chang *Ramsey Faragallah as Abdul Amin *Daniel May Wong as Arresting Officer

References

External links

* *
Strip Search DVD on Amazon.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strip Search (Film) 2004 television films American political drama films 2004 drama films 2004 films Films shot in New Jersey War on terror Films directed by Sidney Lumet HBO Films films 2000s American films