In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco

1993

Action / Drama

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 44% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 44% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.4/10 10 844 844

faith fbi texas cult based on true story religion

Plot summary

Religious fanatics are barricaded in a building and surrounded by police. But they're not going to surrender; they prefer to die.

Director

Dick Lowry Photo
Dick Lowry

Top cast

Cara Buono Photo
Cara Buono
Stephen Mailer Photo
Stephen Mailer
James Marsden Photo
James Marsden as Steven Willis
Neal McDonough Photo
Neal McDonough as Jason
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
854.48 MB
960*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
30 fps
1 hr 32 min
Seeds 2
1.55 GB
1440*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
30 fps
1 hr 32 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by JurijFedorov 6 / 10

It's a nice little watch, but not much more

Historical accuracy: 8Acting: 6 Dialogue: 7 Camera work: 7 Editing: 7 Budget: 7 Story: 6 Theme: 6 Pure entertainment factor: 7 Video quality: 5 Special effects: 7 Pacing: 7 Suspension of disbelief: 7 Non-cringe factor: 7 Lack of flashbacks: 10My second In the Line of Duty movie. First one was great. This is a step down as expected, but I actually still enjoyed it so I will for sure watch them all. It is TV movie quality. You see this in the acting, the camera work, the editing. But it also creates a unique cozy feeling of the 90's. A bit more simplified movie making.The tension remains high and they really double down on the evilness of the cult leader who had kids with underage girls and slept with the wives of his followers. Also here seen as forbidding anyone else to have sex altogether. Which of course makes you question how a man this mad and insane could be charismatic enough long enough to gain followers ready to off themselves for him. So maybe the movie goes a tad overboard with his depiction, but this is not a good guy. Imagine a person convincing his friends, both moms and dads, to let him impregnate their underage daughter. His depiction here going over the history and what he did is great.We follow them as they collect weapons to prepare for the end. Fighting the evil outsiders somehow. FBI prepares to take the kids away and storm the complex and the Waco people return fire. I do think the Waco TV show is better. Higher budget, amazing acting, and some more developed tension. This movie basically shows us clips of what happened without explaining much. The movie for sure has 5 times as much info about the cult itself. Waco took the side of the cult leader. He was seen as unwilling to have sex, the underage stuff was ignored, basically nearly most negative stuff about the cult was hidden away and we saw FBI storm the compound as the evil guys just interested in media exposure. This movie on the other hand skips everything outside the compound to a degree where it feels simplified. And it ends with FBI storming the compound with bullets flying everywhere. That's like half the way into the full story. We still have the negotiation and fire. The fire is the big event here. We know the cult members set it, but the gas FBI shot into the building caused it to be a greater disaster killing most people inside. Even the kids that the cult on purpose locked inside a room they couldn't escape from. The ending really lets it down as it has none. The FBI storming the compound is also quite nonsense here and mostly fiction. But we kinda understand what happened in real life. Just overlook 90% of the bullets.I recommend the TV show, but it's so extremely pro cult that it feels bad to recommend it alone. I could recommend this movie to people needing more info on the cult itself, but you can also watch a documentary for that. It's ... mediocre. You will not be bored and the one romance is great here, but with the low budget and too fast pace it feels like it doesn't quite tie it all together.
Reviewed by Leofwine_draca 5 / 10

Made for TV movie tells only half the story

AMBUSH IN WACO is one in a series of American made-for-TV movies chronicling American police cases and various crimes. The series title is IN THE LINE OF DUTY, and it's not to be confused with the excellent Hong Kong action series of the same name. AMBUSH IN WACO is a straightforward account of the infamous Waco, Texas siege in which ATF agents stormed a stronghold belonging to the Branch Davidian cult.The main problem with this film is that it was made contemporaneously with the true-life events, so much so that the whole story isn't even told (except in a written coda at the climax). However, it does build to a thrilling ending of sorts, the infamous and bungled siege that saw a number of ATF agents losing their lives as they attempted to storm the complex despite knowing the cult members inside were heavily armed.The film as a whole isn't bad, although it does feel a little slow with over an hour of set-up before any kind of meaningful action begins. The story is very biased in favour of the authorities which a number of reviewers seem to take issue with. Tim Daly gives a very good performance as the deranged cult leader David Koresh, and old-timer Clu Gulager has a small role as the sheriff. Best of the lot is a youthful Neal McDonough, packing in the intensity even at this early stage of his career.
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