Shock and Awe

This was a well done movie which succeeded in angering me all over again how this criminal administration lied America into an illegal and immoral war aided and abetted by the main stream media and supported by a gullible populace who hates to admit that they were wrong.

A pretty good film that is suprisingly short. This means that the story progresses nice and quickly but leaves the movie lacking a little extra depth that I think would have helped its ranking significantly.

The acting is well above average but not unexpected when you look at the cast.

The love interest of the movie is a little unnessecary and probably wasted some of the limited minutes the movie had to work with.

Tommy Lee Jones was compelling but also not given a lot to work with.

Regardless of the movie you have to respect their dedication to following the story and trying to present the truth :)

The real life story behind what became one of the worst war mistakes a US president made. And all that just to retaliate and try to find peace. The movie has quite the strong story to dig into. That alone and how some reporters where fighting for the truth to come out is amazing enough. When everyone else was going along the line of what the president said ... they didn't.

And having the right actors to pull that off helps too. Still the absolute zinger seems to be missing. This is more than good and decent, don't get me wrong, but for those familiar with what happened and how this played out, this may feel a bit weak. Or not as strong as it could have been. Great acting overall though and the story might take you to a hopeful place. Because no matter how many times, the hopefully one term president screams and yells about the press being the enemy of the people, it just ain't true

Despite the A list cast and very worthy subject matter this movie about the WMD deception feels a little amateurish. There are pros and cons of the way the issues are stated clearly in more or less in sequence. The pros are you get it. The points aren't lost or mumbled so as to be missed. And there is not jigsaw puzzle narrative. That is good. Unlike Spotlight which was a bit confusing. The cons are it feels like a lecture / documentary. The best point is it puts together and illuminates the sequence of events and the WMD deception from it's early stages to the invasion and the consequences. The most eye opening thing is that these journalists were on to the deception from such an early stage and the main stream press refused to let the public know.

As you would expect with such a stellar cast, fine performances all round. I think the message of this film is even more pertinent today. It is beholden on us all, to look with a critical eye, at what those in power are saying; is it true, where is the evidence? If each of us can take some measure of skepticism, as shown by the journalists portrayed here, our society will be all the better for it. This film does truly crystalise, the criminal actions of the leaders of the time and the abject failure of the leading media organisations, whose primary function, is to hold those very same, to account.