First Hit: Intense, interesting and powerful film providing a telling view of just how bad and desperate our previous administration was.
Paul Greengrass creates an intense film by using heavy shaky camera moves during opening sequences which have a team of soldiers looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) at sites identified by US Intelligence.
Matt Damon plays “Chief Miller” a Chief Warrant Officer heading up a team of people looking for these WMDs which was the reason why we invaded Iraq. Each site they encounter there are no weapons, only bird shit and emptiness.
Miller starts to outwardly question the intelligence to his superiors and he is told to stifle his comments and just do as he is told by these commanding officers. The intelligence for these validated WMD sites comes from an Iraqi insider code named “Magellan”.
As Miller starts asking questions, a longtime CIA operative, a reporter and an Iraqi civilian make contact adding pieces to the puzzle as to why all the sites are empty and why US government is very adamant about keeping their deceit about their validated intelligence from the public.
Greengrass did an outstanding job of making dramatic, the story about how the Bush Administration fooled us all just so he could be a bully on the block and topple a man and government in another country. Damon is, as always, compelling, believable, and outstanding in his role as a man who is true to the truth even if it is against the his government’s version of the truth. Yigal Naor is very strong, steady and perfect as Hussein’s top General who provided accurate WMD information that was ignored by Clark Poundstone (played by Greg Kinnear). Kinnear is great as a the lead orchestrator in Iraq of our deceit.
Overall: This is a very compelling dramatic film about how the US Public and the world was misled about our “verified” intelligence about WMD stored in facilities around Iraq.