Product Description
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A high-octane, globe-spanning thriller with storylines ripped
from today’s headlines, Strike Back is a one-hour drama series
that focuses on two members of a top-secret anti-terrorist
organization known as Section 20: Michael Stonebridge, a British
sergeant in the ultra secret Section 20 anti-terrorist team, and
Damien Scott, a Delta Forces operative who was disgraced and
discharged on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
.com
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When American cable viewers tuned in to the premiere Cinemax
offering Strike Back in 2011, they were actually seeing the
second series of a British TV show based on a popular novel by a
former British officer. Known in the United Kingdom as
Strike Back: Project Dawn, the 10-part series follows the covert
exploits of Section 20, a secret subgroup of Britain's MI6
intelligence agency. The series has a plot arc that extends
across the entire season (carried over from the original
six-episode first British series), but the hour-long installments
are also divided into five two-part stories that stand alone in
the larger storyline. The overlying plot concerns a brilliant
Armageddon-obsessed terrorist named Latif (Jimi Mistry), who is
the target of Section 20's global manhunt. The two field agents
on Latif's tail are Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester), of
the British Special Air Services, and Damien Scott (Sullivan
Steton), a disgraced American Special Forces alpha dog now
working as a contract officer for Section 20. While they follow
leads and stay one step behind Latif, Stonebridge and Scott
buddy-buddy their way from New Delhi to South Africa, Darfur,
Kosovo, Chechnya, and Budapest, leaving a trail of bullet-riddled
corpses and sexually satisfied women strewn in their wake. Strike
Back unabashedly revels in extreme bloody violence and gratuitous
soft porn (they don't call it "Skinemax" for nothing), along with
the jargon-heavy tradecraft of realistic counterterrorism dramas
like 24, Homeland, and The Unit. The writing is often very good,
with a ripped-from-the-headlines vibe that makes for taut
narrative structure and plenty of suspenseful action. (The first
two episodes portray the siege of a hotel based on the 2008
terrorist attack in Mumbai.) Stonebridge and Scott trade a
breathless stream of foul-mouthed one-liners and lingo
between the prolific and often shockingly offhanded violence.
Their standing orders seem to be shoot first, kill the people who
have the information they need, and damn the innocent civilians
who get between their automatic weapons and the terrorists,
warlords, drug kingpins, and arms dealers in their s. The
duo have a knack for blundering into situations and blowing their
covers for the sake of -blazing action rather than quiet
intelligence gathering, which certainly packs the show with
exciting fun. Despite the superfluous displays of and
absurdly high body count, Strike Back is a cracking serial
thriller with high-level production standards that are
consistently first-rate. The actors in Section 20's support staff
make for a fine ensemble, and their crosscut operations maintain
a credible level of detail in the multiple story threads that
wind through the entire series. Including Jimi Mistry, there is
an impressive cast of guest stars that add gravitas even as the
mayhem threatens to devolve into the cartoonish. Liam Cunningham
plays a psychopathic ex-IRA terrorist hungry for bio-weapons in
one two-parter, and Iain Glen is a morally conflicted arms dealer
in another. The show does sustain a high level of integrity; key
characters are dispatched as the episodes count down to the
ultimate face-off with Latif and the way is cleared for another
season. While Cinemax continues the search for its golden show,
Strike Back is a perfectly fine diversion. --Ted Fry