If I had been interviewed upon exiting a theatre after viewing Unthinkable I would have said “I hated it, it was a horrible movie!” This morning, after a night of fitful sleep (a side effect of the film), I realize that it wasn’t the movie that I hated, it was the fact that it needed to be made because the majority of Americans (and much of the world for that matter) are out of touch with the realities of terrorism.

Unthinkable presents a portrait of the effects of military service and training for America’s war against Islamic terrorism on Steven Arthur Younger, a white American man whose childhood was probably pretty normal of someone growing up in the 80s & 90s.

Before we meet him, Younger (played by Michael Sheen) has converted to Islam, married a Muslim woman, had two children with her and carried a big chip on his shoulder over his emotional conflicts between loyalty to his country and to his religion of choice. Younger sends the government a video of himself and three bombs, each in a different major US city storage room, claiming that they are nuclear bombs set to detonate in less than a week.

Follow up:

LA-based FBI Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) and her team are tasked with locating the bombs after the CIA admits they've known that this young man obtained the fissionable material during trips to other countries on government business and that he possesses the knowledge to build the bombs - Classified Information the CIA felt that the FBI had no previous need to know.

Meanwhile "H" (Samuel L Jackson, who plays this role brilliantly), a CIA consultant, conducts an interrogation that includes torture tactics on the suspect who we learn staged his own capture knowing exactly what these interrogations entail!

Brody, a bleeding heart liberal (according to my husband who shouted it at me several times during the movie when I was siding with her), fights with the CIA consultant over his extreme tactics and is allowed to play her role in the “good cop/bad cop” game as the clock ticks toward nuclear murder of millions of Americans. Younger proves to be a tough nut to crack due to his motives which aren’t revealed until the last quarter of the movie, despite "H" being allowed by military and CIA staff to increase the torture.

As we reach the climax and the terrorist’s wife and children are captured and brought to the secret facility, the question of whether "H" should be allowed to do the unthinkable is raised… is it possible that the torture of a few will save the lives of millions? Is it Constitutional? Ethical?

The movie left me realizing just how difficult a call it would be under such circumstances. It made me angry that radical Islam’s war on the non-Muslim world is pushing good, moral and ethical men and women down to the Islamic level of savagery. We are reminded that good people are playing right into their hands as “H” tells Brody that if she can do it, anyone can. And it seems that regardless of our choices, evil wins… if we descend to their level we have lost a piece of our souls; if we fight ethically millions of people die.

The movie horrified me. It is not a film that children should see and I’m sorry that I allowed my 10-year-old to watch it. Most sorry because it awakened me to the realization that his world is light-years away from the age of innocence I grew up in. As I recoiled, he didn’t flinch at the torture of an American citizen by another American citizen. His generation understands the psychology behind – and necessity for - the torture. May God bring an end to this insanity, speedily in our days.

More about Unthinkable at the Internet Movie Database