Backstabbing for Beginners

Michael Soussan's memoir of his experiences working for the UN during the Iraqi crisis has been transformed into a tightly woven screenplay by Daniel Pine and director Per Fly. The true story is at once enlightening, horrifying, and maddening - some truth about the degree of corruption on al levels of government not only in this country but also around the world.

Theo James takes on the role of Michal Soussan as he unravels the tale of the misappropriation of United Nations money in the Oil for Food program that was intended to supply food and medicine to the victims of Saddam Hussein's brutal madness in Iraq 2002 - 2003. The cast is uniformly excellent with the superb Ben Kingsley as the UN undersecretary Pasha in charge of the Oil for Food humanitarian effort to aid the desperate Iraqi citizens. He hires the somewhat naïve Michael Soussan to go to Baghdad to oversee the supposed infiltration of evil in the humanitarian program. Michael's naïveté fails to face the complex dealings of Christine Dupre (Jacqueline Bisset), the Kurdish Nashim (Belçim Bilgin), the evil Rasnetsov (Brian Markinson), and other characters portrayed by Rossif Sutherland, Rachel Wilson, Peshang Rad, among others.

The depth and extent of corruption in the manipulation of the billions of dollars sent for humanitarian aid but foiled by Hussein and the governments and big businesses of the world leading up to the attack on Iraq by President George Bush's included photomontage speech is horrifying. Yes, we all have heard and read about the extent of global corruption, but to watch it occur along with mass killings and degrading behaviors is staggeringly real and disgusting. Did the film need to be made? Yes, if we all care about somehow finding a means to end the greed and hypocrisy that still remains a global plague. Not an inspiring film, but a necessary one. And well done.

This film tells the story of a young diplomat who navigates an impossible maze of lies, deceit and death threats.

The diplomat is in a huge dilemma, but he navigates the situation well and ends up way more fortunate than many others in the film. The film is a little slow, and can use tighter editing. Still, it is an interesting film to watch.

The film gets a seven rating because Ben Kingsley's acting is first rate and never less than 1st rate and over all the story will hold your interest and has some twists to it, it will keep you guessing. The romantic parts of the movie feel like they were thrown in, like a focus group or a committee made the movie and the drama is suspended for those scenes. The dialogue and character development between Ben Kingsley and Theo James make the film worth watching. Pity that the entire script did not hold up as well as the better scenes. When you see of some of the uninspired fare that the streaming giants throw money at I say this is a worthy effort.

As a movie the piece is nothing spectacular and as such might not capture the average movie fan but for us who like a movie based on real events this is pretty good, to me a true story based movie is almost always better than the fictional one. Before you go saying "you really believe there are 100% true movies" ill stop you right there, no, i do not, but you dont have to take the movie at face value it can inspire you to do your own research about the matter if you are interested. To be frank i dont think i (or you) ever actually heard a 100% true story, human memory is not 100%, rarely anything is, this was close enough to get the point across.

This was a very big scandal, there is a reviewer here on IMDB who stated it is a fictional movie and that he/she was actually involved in Food-for-Oil which was nothing but sunshine and rainbows. I have a hard time believing that. Why did the people involved fled, why did all those companies settled and paid enormous fines, just not to go thru a hassle of proving oneself innocent? I am sure there are very fine men and women in the UN who really try to help but any and every organization is susceptible to corruption and UN is no different, where there is power there is abuse of power.

I wish there were more movies that are doing scandals of the time past so we dont forget and dont let them repeat.

Everybody knew this was a corrupt operation - I was in Baghdad in 97 and met some UN observers one told me when she went to the warehouses to check and they were empty, her bosses said to her "shut up and take your money"....there were some highly moral people hi up in the UN though like Dennis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck and Jutta Burghardt, of WFP who like the other two resigned. A very shameful time for the UN and of course the people of Iraq who still suffer to this day. This story needs to be told and the film should be pushed but it wont be...........