Review: Reporting America's 'Dirty Wars' Richard Rowley's documentary is a sobering account of Jeremy Scahill's reporting on the war on terror in the Middle East and Africa, and the effects of its clandestine operations.
Comments 0 Email Share 10 A scene from "Dirty Wars." (Handout / June 6, 2013) 'Dirty Wars' makers go behind Obama's counterterrorism Movie review: Google crashers join Internet age in 'The Internship' Review: Judy Blume's 'Tiger Eyes' captures teen growing pains Review: 'The Purge' takes a half-hearted look at class warfare Movie review: 'Hello Herman' misses target Review: 'Welcome to Pine Hill' blurs lines between fiction, reality See more stories » Ads by Google Southwest Airlines® Visa Get a Roundtrip Flight & 6k Anniversary Bonus. Apply Now! CreditCards.CHASE.com/Southwest Zappos Misses You Please Come Back to Zappos & Finish Your Purchase! We Miss You. www.Zappos.com/Shopping-Cart By Robert Abele June 6, 2013, 6:40 a.m. Richard Rowley's documentary "Dirty Wars" is a sobering account of acclaimed journalist Jeremy Scahill's reporting on the war on terror in the Middle East and Africa, and the effect its clandestine operations have had not just on those shaken by its violence but also on Scahill himself. He's the increasingly weary, die-hard truth-seeker covering a military/political apparatus built on shielding those truths from the American public. Narrated by Scahill, author of a blistering expose of Blackwater and the private military contractor's role in theIraq war, and a more recent book, also called "Dirty Wars," the film takes an atypically personal approach to a doc genre that has rarely needed more than grim footage, testimonials from victims and an omniscient narrator to generate interest and/or outrage in America's win-at-all-costs approach to its enemies. Essentially, "Dirty Wars" is about the toil of such reportage as the story itself. When Scahill digs into a suspicious 2010 night assault in Gardez, Afghanistan, that killed two pregnant women, he gradually uncovers the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a secretive military unit that would ultimately gain elite hero status for the Osama Bin Laden raid that took out the Al Qaeda leader. PHOTOS: Summer Sneaks 2013 But faced with evidence that JSOC has broad operational power outside of Congress, and an ever-expanding kill list, Scahill becomes both reporter and subject, a noir figure of sorts, rooting out a morally queasy side of the war while charting his own emotional weather, as Rowley's camera returns time and again to Scahill's face. (The fact that some of Scahill's interviewees government retirees distressed by America's war policies are shielded, adds to the conspiracy-style vibe.) The personalized technique doesn't always work, especially when Scahill is with grieving citizens in targeted countries. Not every interview needs his glumly empathetic mug. The movie is effective enough in what Scahill unearths, particularly in the case of radicalized American citizen Anwar al Awlaki, killed in a drone strike with scary implications as to whom the U.S. can mark for elimination. The ambitions toward '70s-era paranoia thrillers aside, as a connect-the-dots narrative, "Dirty Wars" is eye-opening, a fierce argument that there are chilling ramifications to endless, vague aggression. -- 'Dirty Wars' MPAA rating: None. Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes. Playing: The Landmark, West L.A. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
