The Muddled Propaganda of Interceptor

A premise underpinning most American action movies involving the military is that the world is a scary place and the US armed forces are the only thing preventing global catastrophe. This notion isn't always spoken out loud but it's almost always there. Hollywood's cozy relationship with the US military is well documented. Military vehicles are very expensive, even by Hollywood blockbuster standards. For example a single fighter jet can cost more than 60 million dollars. So in order to access real military equipment and get advice from active military experts a lot of films work with the US Department of Defense. This of course means those films have to get the DOD stamp of approval to get made. This goes all the way back to WWII.

It is no surprise that a writer who grew up enamored with Hollywood action movies might imbue his own work with a similar ethos. I believe this is the case with novelist Matthew Reilly and his first movie, Interceptor.

For a brief period in the summer of 2022 this Netflix action thriller proved, yet again, that a film doesn't need a good script, decent acting, or really anything more than the promise of an attractive cast and possibly some explosions to reach the number 1 spot on Netflix's top 10 list. Interceptor is a member of a growing class of Netflix-made films defined by a poor critical response but massive viewership on the streaming platform. A good example of this is the Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx movie Back in Action, which I have yet to watch because it just looks so awful.

Put simply, Interceptor is just not a good movie. The dialog is corny, the acting wooden, the fight scenes uninspired. To me the only interesting part of the film is the cultural discussion around it. Writing in Variety, cultural critic Marc Malkin praised the film for "[touching] on a variety of hot button issues, including #MeToo ... Russian aggression, xenophobia and right wing conspiracy theories." Many a voice could be heard in the wastelands of cyberspace accusing the film of being woke propaganda, mostly because of a subplot involving Elsa Pataky's character being sexually harassed in the military. That and the cartoonishly racist, misogynist Beaver Baker portrayed, with a truly awful attempt at an American "redneck" accent, by Aaron Glenane.

The film does awkwardly flail at something resembling social commentary about sexism in the military and racism in general but doesn't really deal with either in any meaningful way. I'm sure the scenes of the 5'3" Captain Joanna Julia "J.J." Collins successfully grappling with much larger men deeply offended the sensibilities of a certain subspecies of terminally online dudes. Having the villains be cis white men, one of whom likes to bitch about identity politics, while the heroes are a woman and a minority makes some people feel attacked. I mean, it must really suck to see such an unfair representation of people you identify with on the screen...

But there's a lot going on in Interceptor that these random People of the Internet seem to have missed that doesn't fit the "this is woke propaganda" narrative at all. The most obvious is something I haven't seen the anti-social justice warrior crowd discuss much and that is Luke Bracey's character Alexander Kessel, the film's main antagonist. When the useful idiots on Fox News talk about "The Radical Left®™" I think Alexander Kessel is the type of person they are imagining.

America is the greatest lie ever told. American exceptionalism? Maybe once. When the founders got rid of kings. When they declared that all men are created equal. Now they say ours are United States, but when was that true? Was it true during the Civil War? Or Jim Crow? Hell, is it true now?

-Alexander Kessel: Interceptor

Kessel spends most of his dialog spouting capital L Left wing ideology as his justification for wanting to destroy America. He denounces American racism and criticizes the sexist treatment Collins has endured. He says he is, "...the product of a failed society. A society that consistently rewards money and ignores everything else." That certainly doesn't sound like someone meant to be a stand-in for the Magasphere. No, that role is fulfilled instead by the stereotypical white-trash gun nut Baker who is little more than another henchman. No, the villain in this film is clearly the America-hating leftist Tucker Carlson warned you about.

For his part, I don't think writer Matthew Reilly was going for any sort of political message at all. No, it feels more like the work of someone who has seen compelling villains before and wanted to emulate them but was woefully unequal to the task. Instead the pairing of the rich leftist Kessel and the right-wing dirtbag everyman Baker ends up standing in for things that truly terrify those in power: class traitors and cooperation between the right and left against the system.

All the main characters in this movie have grievances against America. The heroes have both had to deal with discrimination, Baker is mad he has to tolerate women and minorities and Kessel seems to just think the whole country is fucked. The heroes are heroes because they maintain their loyalty to the system that has abused them; the villains are villains because their grievances motivate them to act against that same system. The message is clear: good Americans keep putting up with the abuse.

Finally, there's the insufferable game theorist who is briefly mentioned about halfway through the film but doesn't actually speak until near the climax. Portrayed as a snooty, somewhat effeminate, out-of-touch intellectual, this character doesn't even get a name. He is a caricature of the sort of clueless Ivy League experts who rural American Fox News viewers imagine are infesting the deep state.

It seems the game theorist's only purpose in the story is to have his supposedly expert opinion verbally shoved up his ass. "Fuck theory. I need some fucking soldiers with guns," Collins says when he is first introduced. His only dialog involves him telling JJ that her desperate plan to save the day "has a 14% chance of success," to which she responds, "Listen, genius. You're saying my plan is running at 14%? Yours is zero!"

In the context of the scene, Collins is right. The theorist has offered no alternative, only criticism. But game theory has played an important role in US military strategy for decades and I very much doubt they would keep real-life game theorists around if they were so useless. The whole exchange is an expression of anti-intellectual sentiment that should make the people in the red hats feel right at home. Real Americans are naturally exceptional and don't need advice from some over-educated nerd. Real Americans trust their gut and take action.

Again, I don't think this is the kind of message Matthew Reilly intended when he made this movie anymore than I think he harbored a desire to spread woke ideology, whatever the fuck that means. The subplot about Collins being sexually harassed by her fellow soldiers was an idea he got from research he had done for one of his books. It was an attempt, however sloppily executed, to give the main character some depth, not to wag a disapproving narrative finger at anyone. The harassment was probably the most realistic part of the movie. Anyone who sees this and feels like they are being scolded should ask themselves why because it seems to me that you are simply sympathizing more with the perpetrator than the victim.

I've watched a few of the interviews he gave about this film when it was popular on Netflix and he seems an affable fellow. In the unlikely case he ever reads this I hope he doesn't take some of the mean things I've said about his movie personally. Reilly strikes me as someone who loves the action genre but has never thought about it too critically. No, I think this is the background radiation of the American military–entertainment complex working as designed. The fact that a film like Interceptor can perpetuate a right-wing worldview while being roasted by viewers as woke is a glowing testament to the effectiveness of this approach to propaganda.

I'll leave you with this quote from the Director of the United States Office of War Information, an American propaganda agency from WWII:

The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.

-Elmer Davis