"Why We Fight" is about America's involvement in recent wars. While the scope of this documentary aims for a broad view of all of the (many) conflicts of past 50 or so years, the focus does fall upon the most recent Iraq war.
The reader will want to know what this 6/10 review is doing amidst all these gushing 10/10's. Am I delusional? Do I really believe the US has selflessly acted in all these wars, bringing happiness and freedom to {insert indigenous population here}? No, I'm certainly not that naive. The most recent Iraq conflict was a botched, misguided effort; as, arguably, most of America's post-WWII involvements have also been. Thus, the obvious question becomes: why does America keep getting involved in these things? This is what "Why We Fight" tries to answer.
The problem with this documentary is that there is no compelling, cohesive answer that is given. We hear from a vast collection of people, all with varied theories on why we're involved. The viewpoints presented are on everything from God-given-mandate-to-spread-freedom, to imperialist-ambitions-to-single-handedly-rule-the-world, to capitalist-corporate-greed-lobbying, to unaccountable-think-tank-policies, to we-need-the-oil, to defense-industry-creates-jobs, to manipulation-of-media-and-public, etc., etc.. Feel lost yet? Well, that's what this documentary is like: disappointingly lost. It raises many individual points - each of which could, if further explored, arguably be valid and interesting - but quickly leaves a point to go on a completely separate tangent.
After its 100 minutes are up, the film leaves you with these little disconnected ideas, each presented through teasing but none-too-conclusive sound bites. You'll walk away with a vague suspicion that something is indeed amiss in America's reasoning for waging war. But of course, any thinking citizen probably had that suspicion to begin with; the job of this documentary was to clarify, present a clear logical explanation to answer our suspicions. It fails to do this. That's unfortunate, since the question of "Why We Fight" is very valid, and very important; someone should make a solid documentary answering it. While this movie does a better, more responsible job than Fahrenheit 9/11 at exploring the issues, it still comes up way, way short.
The reader will want to know what this 6/10 review is doing amidst all these gushing 10/10's. Am I delusional? Do I really believe the US has selflessly acted in all these wars, bringing happiness and freedom to {insert indigenous population here}? No, I'm certainly not that naive. The most recent Iraq conflict was a botched, misguided effort; as, arguably, most of America's post-WWII involvements have also been. Thus, the obvious question becomes: why does America keep getting involved in these things? This is what "Why We Fight" tries to answer.
The problem with this documentary is that there is no compelling, cohesive answer that is given. We hear from a vast collection of people, all with varied theories on why we're involved. The viewpoints presented are on everything from God-given-mandate-to-spread-freedom, to imperialist-ambitions-to-single-handedly-rule-the-world, to capitalist-corporate-greed-lobbying, to unaccountable-think-tank-policies, to we-need-the-oil, to defense-industry-creates-jobs, to manipulation-of-media-and-public, etc., etc.. Feel lost yet? Well, that's what this documentary is like: disappointingly lost. It raises many individual points - each of which could, if further explored, arguably be valid and interesting - but quickly leaves a point to go on a completely separate tangent.
After its 100 minutes are up, the film leaves you with these little disconnected ideas, each presented through teasing but none-too-conclusive sound bites. You'll walk away with a vague suspicion that something is indeed amiss in America's reasoning for waging war. But of course, any thinking citizen probably had that suspicion to begin with; the job of this documentary was to clarify, present a clear logical explanation to answer our suspicions. It fails to do this. That's unfortunate, since the question of "Why We Fight" is very valid, and very important; someone should make a solid documentary answering it. While this movie does a better, more responsible job than Fahrenheit 9/11 at exploring the issues, it still comes up way, way short.