The Anthrax Attacks

Very interesting. As a current USPS letter carrier, I really understood the frustration of the employees interviewed for this documentary. I went through a similar experience at my office during the COVID-19 pandemic. (not AS scary as anthrax, but the bureaucratic foot dragging that left employees unnecessarily exposed) I felt so sad for my brothers and sisters that suffered during this awful time, and I wish they had their actual day in court!

The film did lag for me toward the end, when the FBI zeroed in on the perpetrator. And I was not at all surprised that it ended in controversy, with what appeared to be a bit of a government cover up. The U. S. Government, and the USPS, should be held much more accountable for their roles in this horrible event in our country's history!

It was interesting to watch but the second half of the documentary like a domino or card house falling apart the whole concept of the movie. The documentary "The Anthrax Attacks" is about what happened after the September 11 attacks (September 11, 2001), but instead of showing us what happened, we see huge mistakes from FBI and people who has a lot of health problems. While you expecting continuation of the investigation, fairness towards post office workers, and some sort of answers, you will get a slap on your face from the government with statements like "Sorry but so many things is going on" or "We have done a great job" Well, kind of disappointing.

It reminded me about Dick Cheney (played by Christian Bale) words in movie "Vice" (2018) at the end of the movie, " I can feel your incriminations and your judgment, and I am fine with that. You want to be loved? Go be a movie star. The world is as you find it. You've gotta deal with that reality that there are monsters in this world. We saw 3,000 innocent people burned to death by those monsters, and yet you object when I refuse to kiss those monsters on the cheek and say "pretty please." You answer me this, what terrorist attack would you have let go forward so you wouldn't seem like a mean and nasty fella? I will not apologize for keeping your family safe. And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done so that your loved ones could sleep peaceably at night. It has been my honor to be your servant. You chose me. And I did what you asked."

God bless America and may the victims of 9/11 rest in peace.

This documentary does a decent job capturing the chaos and uncertainty of the weeks after 9/11 when America was besieged by Anthrax-laced mailings. These mailings resulted in only five deaths, but caused an untold level of fear. The film does a good job overviewing the lengthy and expensive FBI investigation into the case. Having lived through that era as a teenager it was interesting to watch this film as a piece of history now that we are over 20 years removed from the attacks. From the science of the pure anthrax spores to the cryptic notes included with the anthrax to the red herrings and missteps along the way, the film manages to cover an enormous amount of information in less than two hours. The film is a mix of news reel footage, interviews with those involved in the case, and re-enactments of key interactions with the main suspect. Clark Gregg of Marvel fame portrays Dr. Bruce Ivins who after a years long investigation was identified by the FBI as the perpetrator. Gregg gave a good performance. I don't normally like re-enactments in documentaries, but these scenes were written based directly on FBI interview notes of their conversations with Ivins as well as Ivins' own emails and writings. This gave the re-enactments a grounded and real feel. Overall this is an informative and easy to digest documentary. However, even after watching it, the viewer may feel less than convinced that the FBI got there man.

I think everyone on the planet will remember the events of September 11th, but not everyone will remember these events, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, this felt like another.

It's a pretty interesting documentary, it's made a little differently, it features some interesting footage, some intriguing interviews, and some less than successful dramatisation scenes.

It's watchable, if a little long, I think instead of being 95 minutes long, it could have been 60, at times it did drag.

Quite informative, I had no idea what anthrax was essentially, and how it behaved, I just assumed it was a chemical weapon, so I learned a little.

It was quite shocking to see that The Postal Centre was kept open, actually pretty sickening, contrast that to The Govern building, the thought of it stuck in the back of my throat,

7/10.

This documentary gives a decent overview of the case but should be supplemented with further reading if you want the full story. A bright spot was the focus on the postal employees and others effected by the attacks. The dive into reasoning and other important detail was kind of glanced over and condensed to a small footnote at the end. Again supplementing with further reading can flesh out the nitty gritty. Would have liked to see a deeper look into Dr Ivins possible motive that was only mentioned at the end. I would have also liked a closer look at the fbi investigation and a bit more of an explanation as to why the samples were destroyed. I assume it's a classic case of "we got our guy so let's close this book before more questions come up" but we will never know.