#29 Watch this on Netflix streaming: No End in Sight

The Film: No End in Sight

This was a movie I was planning too see on its release. However, it came at a time when, in my opinion, people my age could take no more. We had been disillusioned by the whole Iraq thing. Who knows where I come down politically, but I was definitely burnt out about the war. After seeing Inside Job, I decided No End In Sight was pretty much obligatory. Charles Ferguson, the best documentarian of the past five or ten years, makes the most definitive argument against America’s involvement in Iraq.

Don’t be fooled. This is not a documentary about humiliating politicians, arguing ideologies, or having funny cut-aways. This is an academic work. I’m sure it will piss off people who lean right, but why? It interviews right wingers and left. It is against the war, but not in the broad sense. It never says: “we shouldn’t have gone”. It, instead, says: “We went and we did it really, really wrong.”

Why to watch it: It is straight forward.

I hate when documentarians try to spice up a documentary with cheese-ball shit. You don’t see Herzog pulling that shit do you? I blame Moore, but it isn’t really his fault. He’s good at it! His documentaries make a lot of money. It, however, doesn’t work when the subjects are as serious as the fiancial crisis or Iraq war.

Both Ferguson and Moore have made documentaries about both these subjects and I don’t think I’m suprising anyone when I say that Ferguson’s documentaries are better. They’re direct and uncompromising. Ferguson was not a life-long documentarian. Instead, he was a millionaire, software whiz and jumped in to make this documentary just to give perspective on the subject.

Pay attention to this: There is very little to laugh about.

Usually Bush is represented as a partying doofus. Honestly, Bush really isn’t the movie much. We learn early on that Bush had very little to do with the key decisions that ruined everything. Yes, the decision to go was his and his team’s. But, he deferred much of the decision making to others. The blame, Ferguson implies, is on the failure of important US officials and dignitaries to listen to their advisors. It is a convincing film. I never got the impression Fergie disagreed with going on the onset, I’ve even heard he was initially for the war. The impression I get is that this war could have been a quick, successful one. However, is now a mess that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives.

-Collin.