Product Description

Twenty-four hours of a counter-terrorist agent's attempt to prevent the assassination of a presidential candidate.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 17-SEP-2002
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2980 in DVD
• Brand: 24
• Released on: 2002-09-17
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 1152 minutes

Amazon.com
Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes places over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you subtract the commercials). Everything takes place in real time, which means no flashbacks, no flash-forwards, no handy time-dissolves. Every strand of the plot has to be dovetailed and interlocked so things happen just when they should, in the right amount of time. Not that easy.

Creator Robert Cochran and his team of writers and directors have done an impressive job of putting the jigsaw together and keeping the tension ratcheted up high, as federal agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) runs around L.A. trying to stall an assassination attempt on an African American presidential candidate and rescue his wife and daughter from the clutches of the Balkan baddies. Twists, turns, revelations, and cliffhangers are tossed at us with satisfying regularity. It's not perfect: we get some hokey plot devices (instant amnesia, anybody?); the final twist makes no sense whatsoever; there are altogether too many huggy family moments; and as for Dennis Hopper's "Serbian" accent....

Even so, this is undeniably mold-breaking TV. Sutherland, rescuing his career from the doldrums in one heroic leap, fully deserves his Golden Globe. Sets and locations are artfully deployed, and Sean Callery's score is a powerful, brooding presence. Like Murder One and The Sopranos, 24 is one of those series that future TV thrillers will be measured against. --Philip Kemp

Customer Reviews

The Clock Is Ticking
"WOW" that is what I said when i finished watching all 24 episodes of this exhilarating show. I must admit that this is one of the most unpredictable TV shows out there, every line; every minute is felt like a real life situation.

For those who are unfamiliar with the setting of the program worry, it's not complicated at all. The show begins at 12:00AM and the last episode end at 12:00am and through the course of 24 hours you go through the events of 3 different stories; all of which take place in real time, at the exact same time. the first story is that of the head of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) Jack Bauer. Jack is in search of his missing teenage daughter, who might be kidnapped. The two other stories center on a presidential candidate David Palmer, who is having troubles with his family about an incident that occur 7 yrs ago. The third story is primarily the CTU center helping Bauer on his investigation. it is very difficult to explain the TV show in a couple of paragraphs with out ruining details; but one thing is for certain that this is probably the most original, effective and realistic show on TV. It left me glued to the TV set until the last episode.

so if you are a fan of shows like Prison Break, C.S.I, The Shield and Law And Order or any action movie than this is definitely gona make your day, your best 24 hours of your life sitting in front of T.V. so don't hesitate, BUY IT NOW!!.

Special Features

Disc 6: Alternate Ending
Alternate Ending with Commentary By Producer & Creator Joel Surnow
Season One Introduction by Keifer Sutherland
Widescreen 1:77:1
Dolby 5.1 Surround

Gaping plot holes you could drive a bus through
Sucked in by all the hype, plus the fact this is now (as I write this) into Season SEVEN, I thought I'd give this a whirl.

It starts at midnight. By 2am I was already irritated by Jack's wife and daughter, two insipid characters played by two of the worst female 'actresses' in TV history. Are they in some way related to the producers? I think we should be told.

By 4am I was starting to be annoyed as to how stupid the whole premise was. Trying to summarise the convoluted, complex and idiotic scheme dreamed up by the terrorists to simply kill the senator is irritating me even more. Suffice to say, the whole thing depends on Jack Bauer's teenage daughter sneaking out of her room at night to meet up with a couple of stoned teenage youths in a van, who have been paid to kidnap her. What would have happened if she'd just decided to stay at home instead? The whole plot would have failed, and we'd be 23 hours and 55 minutes short of a series!

By 7am I was shouting at the TV screen, to the goodies, the baddies, everybody. "Why are you doing that, you idiot? Just do this!" Characters behave in the most stupid and nonsensical manner, purely to set up a cliff-hanger ending for the next episode. Good grief - even the original Batman series was more plausible than this!

By 11am I was exhausted by all the ludicrous plot twists and character changes. Goodies become baddies, baddies become goodies, and bit part support characters change from simpering lovebirds to rabid nutters,and back again, all in the space of a few hours.

By 1pm I was fast-forwarding through the 'soapy' scenes, where embarrassingly bad actors spouted even worse banal dialogue to each other - the senator and his ridiculous son (who looks nothing like him and is about a third of his height), the senator and his wife, Jack's wife and Jack's daughter, Jack's wife and Jack ... "I love you" "I love you too" "I was never there for you, but I'm here for you now..." blah blah blah...

By 3pm even the action scenes were getting dull. Oh look, here's Jack again, driving off at high speed in yet another vehicle... Oh crikey, he's crashed! Oh no, the baddies have got him... again! The man gets through about 50 forms of transport, all in one day - and never once gets held up in traffic!

By 5pm I hate the goodie characters so much I'm rooting for the baddies. "Go on... shoot them! For God's sake! Do us all a favour!" Jack's wife is the worst of the lot, a strange scrawny individual who stumbles around weeping most of the time, showing all the emotional range of a Thunderbirds puppet - gawky, uncoordinated and with wide staring eyes too big for her head. This is fine when she's supposed to be suffering from memory loss and doesn't know who she is or where she is... but she's like this right from the word go! A more irritating character would be hard to find... although her teenage daughter - shoehorned into the mess purely to keep adolescent boys happy - comes very very close. She does a great line in stupid sullen petulance, and most of the time you're wishing somebody would give her a good slap.

By 7pm I'm realising I'm just a few hours from the end, so I skipped through the last five episodes in barely one hour... and didn't miss a trick!

It was a relief when it was over. In total it occupied about eight hours of my life. I wish it had only been eight seconds.

Thank Goodness for Torture
The first season was fun. The concept for "24" a novel, exciting one. No other season since was as good. The downside is that "24" helped the public get used to the idea that torture is a vital necessity for saving American lives -- an idea which most experts in the real world intelligence community overwhelmingly disagree. In effect, this television program has been successful propaganda for the rightwing and Bush Administration (regardless of what any actor may think of his role or makers of a TV show claim).