The Fog of War, 2003

Peace-nick agenda-mentary. I'm sure you'll like this if you like fatty Michael Moore's creations. McNamara's words are cut so often it almost reaches every other word in some passages. I'm not sure if this is because he was interjecting too many "umms" in his speech to be watchable or because of the film makers' desire to mold his words to their predefined agenda. And other times, the man behind the camera fires in random questions/comments that any naive peace-nick would love to hear. The visuals are: McNamara, of course; undated war footage that may or may not match the narrative (i.e., stock footage that looks close to what McNamara is talking about); and footage of old-timey props to fill-in other areas of McNamara's stories. In any case, of course, the conclusion is that most all war is unnecessary for some reason or another based on McNamara's admissions of uncertainty and bumbling among elected officials. Of course nuclear holocaust is to be avoided at all costs, and history is riddled with odd personalities and errors in judgment. But we cannot white wash the real threat of the Nazi's, imperial Japan, Communism, etc. to our liberties and freedoms. If there was no self-defense, the most ruthless would rule the world. The only reason that we don't have endless war with imperial Japan or Nazi Germany is that these regimes were FULLY defeated so that they had no hope to carry on qua aggressive cultures. In the context of the 1940's (and their refusal to surrender), this required bombing them to submission and/or collapse. Naïve peace-nicks love to drop context and assume that the hearts of all aggressors/dictators will melt if we just show them a little love. I give it 2 starts because I enjoy the soundtrack and it does give a lot of "first-hand" retelling cold-war history albeit suspect in its agenda-filtering from the film makers.

What did you think about this review?

Thank you for voting.

Like Dislike

Abuse report sent

Report abuse