History YMMV / TheSiege

* UnfortunateImplications: Creator/RogerEbert [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-siege-1998 was extremely critical]] of the film because of what he believed was [[CluelessAesop a poor attempt]] at subverting the anti-Arab/Islamophobic attitudes typically found in other movies.
-->"I'm not arguing that ''The Siege'' is a deliberately offensive movie. It's not that brainy. In its clumsy way, it throws in comments now and then to show it knows the difference between Arab terrorists and American citizens. But the prejudicial attitudes embodied in the film are insidious, like the anti-Semitism that infected fiction and journalism in [[TheThirties the 1930s]]--not [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler just]] in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Germany]], but in Britain and America."

* RetroactiveRecognition: That patrol cop at the second bus hostage scene who tells Hubbard that there are kids on the bus? That's Wood Harris, before he became better known as Avon Barksdale in ''Series/TheWire''. And Floyd Rose is played by Lance Reddick, who ''Wire'' fans will better know from playing Cedric Daniels.

** From a rather specific point of view, they're all right: Hubbard's steadfast belief in the law is what you'd expect from an FBI agent, but it's utterly useless against dedicated Islamic terrorists who will die for their cause. Elise's attempts to sway and use people have their uses, as she's able to help identify several cells and gather needed intelligence to take them down, but the blowback from her operations years before the main plot were what set everything off. And Devereaux specifically argued against martial law, and specifically stated that he didn't want to do it, but he was ordered to and therefore he was doing it. He's not wrong to follow orders, and he has the best intentions in mind, but he does take it too far without realizing it.

** Terrorist incidents in the United States that happened after this movie, like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing, may not have led to martial law, mass detention, torture by military personnel and use of helicopter gunships in urban areas, but the subsequent counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq used exactly these tactics.

** This trope is also inverted of sort in that the tipping point is a bombing of an FBI field office that kills over 600 people. The movie treats it as the most horrific terrorist act that could ever happen in the US. More than four times that many people were killed at the World Trade Center alone, and more than five times that many once the deaths from the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 are added on. Though in the movie, part of the reason the attack on One Federal Plaza was so devastating was that with the FBI counterterrorism office destroyed, their capability to respond to additional attacks was severely weakened.

** The second bombing involves the bombing of the New Victory Theater in Times Square, which results in mass casualties. While no theatres in the vicinity of Times Square have been targeted by bombs, Times Square itself was the target in 2010 of an attempted car bombing.

* UnfortunateImplications: Creator/RogerEbert [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-siege-1998 was extremely critical]] of ''Film/TheSiege'' because of what he believed was [[CluelessAesop a poor attempt]] at subverting the anti-Arab/Islamophobic attitudes typically found in other movies.

** General Devereaux's HeelRealization [[IgnoredEpiphany rings hollow]] today, as [[Creator/BruceWillis his actor]] endorsed [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump a politician]] who regularly demonizes Muslims and other minorities, resulting in Concentration Camps (albeit for undocumented immigrants) and the above-mentioned airport detentions.