Jack Bauer speaks softly, carries big grenade launcher

While more curmudgeonly critics might call it simple, reductive or intellectually bankrupt, I like the streamlined viewing experience provided by “24: Redemption.” Everything is helpfully color-coded like the halls of a hospital. Scenes that take place in Africa are uniformly brown, as if filmed through a coffee filter, and scenes that take place in America contain loud strokes of red, white and blue. Tacit racists everywhere will be pleased to know that the movie makes constant, diligent efforts to portray Africa as an absurdly dismal place. In one scene, a group of children kick around a sadly deflated soccer ball over the parched, junk-strewn earth of the savannah, only to be interrupted by the arrival of some comically evil grunts who need fresh child soldiers. Bummer.

— Matt Margini


Blessing the rains down in Africa

In the cold open of “24: Redemption,” a warlord is about to force a drugged-up child soldier to execute a political prisoner. In another show there would be a last-minute reprieve. But this is “24,” so the little guy decapitates the prisoner with a machete. Bum-pum! Bum-pum!

We are presented with a familiar vision of Africa, full of AIDS orphans, militias with AK-47s and kindhearted white people. The Africans can be divided into roughly three groups: murderous black-hearted villains, handy expendable sidekicks and noble victims. This is offensive until you realize that this is just the way the show treats all non-Bauer humans.

— Nate Jones


The morality of Bauerism

In “24” there is not good and evil, but boldness and cowardice. The former is always the moral path since it is the one that leads to explosions. At the top of this system, of course, is Jack Bauer himself. After relaxing from 3:00 to 3:30 p.m., he decides to start blowing up trucks, a decision that lets him save a group of children from becoming cannon fodder.

There is also a legal aide whose bold refusal to destroy plot-advancing documents helps him to kick the drug addiction that had previously symbolized his inability to act. A cowardly U.N. representative is a greater villain than the rebel leaders, whom the show respects for at least being willing to kill people for no reason. This is the First Church of Joel Surnow, where atonement asks not for confession, but just to put another round into the chamber.

— W.M. Akers


But still! It’s fun!

I watch “24” for three reasons: The bad guys always lose; more senior bad guys always ominously appear for midseason cliffhangers; and it has lots of loud noises. All of this is true of “24: Redemption,” so I enormously enjoyed it. It is not, strictly speaking, a memorable episode, or even a decent episode. It is slow for the first third and after that it has the plot of a video game.

But I watch “24” instead of playing video games. And if you want the adrenaline without having to memorize all the difficult buttons, “Redemption” is about perfect.


— Adam Playford

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