Bin Laden movie to premiere in US ahead of election

Oct 06, 2012 |

Washington

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A big-name Hollywood fundraiser for Barack Obama is releasing the first feature film about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden two days before the US presidential election.

SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden is distributed by Harvey Weinstein, the respected movie mogul who hosted the president at a celebrity-studded fundraising event in New England last month.

In a press release, the National Geographic Channel said it would premiere SEAL Team Six on November 4 after its president Howard Owens and Weinstein discussed "the insight the film is sure to evoke in all Americans."

The film -- directed by John Stockwell and produced for theatrical release by Nicholas Chartier, who produced the Oscar-winning war film The Hurt Locker -- will then go onto Netflix movie screening website.

In a trailer posted online Friday, characters are heard saying "We're going to be the team that takes out Osama" and "the president of the United States is going to be staking his presidency on this call."

Obama personally gave the green light for US Navy SEAL commandos to target Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 in a daring night-time raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

"This portrayal of the events that took place that night is moving, to say the very least," said Weinstein in the National Geographic Channel press release.

"I anticipate audiences will be as captivated as I was from the beginning to the end," he added.

"And I'm extremely proud as an American citizen to play a role in making sure this stunning portrayal over very recent American history is available in as many homes as possible."

Opinion polls had put Obama, gunning for a second White House term, ahead of Mitt Romney prior to a televised debate Wednesday in which Romney came out the victor in the eyes of most political analysts.

Weinstein, executive producer of films as diverse as The English Patient, The Artist and the most recent Rambo movie in a filmmaking career dating back to the 1970s, is a well-known supporter of the Democratic party.

His exclusive Obama fundraiser in August at his seaside compound in Westport, Connecticut was attended by about 50 people, the Hollywood Reporter trade journal reported. Tickets cost $38,5000 each.

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