No End in Sight

$1.86 trillion
I just saw this gem at an indy theatre. Films of the subject of Iraq keep getting more powerful.

To be honest, I was thinking of giving it only 4 stars for the reason I've considered that for some other documentaries: they tend to lose track of the fallacies by which we entered Iraq by getting embedded in the discussion of how it should have been better planned. But I'm thinking now that those initial issues have been addressed before, now it's time to move onto something else and this work of art does so.

This is an important documentary because those doing the speaking are mid-level bureaucrats with the federal government. So you're getting the story "straight from the horse's mouth" (or mouths).

The film begins with the history of the Iraq situation. That's covered succintly, leaving nothing out. Then there's one boondoggle after the other; Rumsfeld talking with the press, saying that they keep covering the negative, while the camera and narrative...

How do you define "quagmire"?
While, as another reviewer has suggested, this latest documentary on Iraq does nothing to push forward the medium of documentary in its aesthetics or its style, it doesn't need to in order to achieve its aims: to present a clear picture of how the situation in Iraq went from difficult to nearly impossible in the few years following President Bush's declaration of victory. What makes the film refreshing is that it makes its case in a non-partisan way, since what we really need as a country is to come together and face our mistakes rather than point fingers of blame at each other for our failure to begin the difficult process of recovery from these mistakes. The film, while very critical of decisions made by the current administration, is not making a case against Republicans per se or against the military, and does not even take a stand on whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place except to mention what is now obvious to most Americans, that the repeated rationale...

best iraq documentary?
You probably won't learn anything new about the Iraq war from this understated documentary, nor should you expect any sort of neutrality. But the catastrophic consequences of the war for our country and the whole world make its chronological review of the basic facts worthwhile, while the cinematic power of pictures as compared to reading books about Iraq puts a very human face on the war. Director Charles Ferguson's film is a searing indictment of the recklessness, gross incompetence, and political cynicism of the Bush administration. He interviews soldiers, diplomats, Bush appointees, state department officials, and Iraqis, all of whom tell their personal stories about working hard at a noble cause only to discover that the emperor and his minions had no clothes and no conscience. Their sense of betrayal is heartbreaking. The film makes it clear that the administration's incompetence and hubris doomed their naive plan from the start, and that five years later there is still "no end...

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