Documentary Sees "No End in Sight" to Iraq War

Film Review by Kam Williams

This even-handed documentary reconstructs the comedy of errors which unfolded in Iraq in the wake of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” declaration. The picture reminds us that that there’s plenty of blame to spread around for the mess we’re in, given that so many Republican and military leaders were naively willing to rubber stamp the White House’s ever overly optimistic of the state of affairs over there.

From Vice President Cheney to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to Director of Reconstruction Paul Bremer, all the Administration’s hatchet men are exposed here as inept idiots without a viable plan for winning the peace. Instead, they apparently played a dangerous game of hot potato with the press, taking turns tossing media microphones around to each other to make rosy predictions about the death throes of the insurgency and the prospects for the democracy.

What makes this movie most entertaining is the participation of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and several other ostensibly disenchanted ex-insiders who gradually grew disenchanted and are now willing to trash the neo-con’s mismanaged master plan. The only problem with the anticlimactic production is that it arrives belatedly, at a juncture when John McCain is just about the only loyalist left still sipping the Bush Kool Aid.

So, while No End in Sight carefully makes a convincing case via damning news footage and confessional interviews, don’t be surprised if it all feels a little like preaching to the choir. Akin to Frontline devoting an entire episode to the tobacco industry’s cover-up of the link between smoking and cancer, as if everybody didn’t already know. Duh!

Excellent
Unrated
Running time: 102 minutes
Studio: Magnolia Pictures