No End In Sight (Movie about botched Iraq War Planning) Pgh 9-7

[RamboLiberal]

Say what you will about the Iraq war, but there's no shortage of information and analysis about it. Whether we're getting all -- or even the right -- data is another argument; as it is there's plenty of media available to support all sides. While I enjoy like-minded partisanship as much as the blowhard on the next barstool, I have more respect for a cogent, thoughtful work that can snake through the sound-bite minefields and draw all patrons up to the bar for a shared gasp of outrage.

Such is Charles Ferguson's documentary about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, No End in Sight, which condenses an enormous amount of information, primarily about the events in Washington, D.C., and Baghdad, during 2003. Ferguson's goal: to reveal the largely preventable errors made then that precipitated the mess we -- and the Iraqis -- are in now.

If you've been diligently paying attention all along, then No End is a valuable refresher précis, a sort of greatest-hits package of blunders and missteps. (Like all compilations, it's got some one-hit wonders: Remember Ahmed Chalabi?) But plenty of us have lost track of the details of the Iraq story; it's become background noise in our busy lives, squawking only intermittently for a fresh tragedy or new political spat. In many respects, "Iraq" now signifies a featureless mess, a catch-all term for this omnipresent Bad Thing Over There that we've simply incorporated alongside other irritants beyond our control.

Ferguson's film sits us down and calmly redraws the lines, once again throwing Iraq into sharp relief. Even the well-informed will be shocked by No End -- not because it necessarily reveals anything new, but because it puts so many stray details and fast-grab headlines into context. And that big picture revealed is universally devastating, whether you supported the war or not: We made an unmitigated mess of Iraq and it didn't have to happen that way.

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Starts Fri., Sept. 7. Squirrel Hill

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A35291