Live from Baghdad
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Movie Reviews of Live from Baghdad
Movie Review: Good movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
Watch it from time to time to see if things change! It will remind you that even if the location & situation might change, the story stays the same.Movie Review: Finally
Summary: 5 Stars
Thank God that after all these years Michael Keaton is back. It was worth the wait. Nobody can do it like he can. Espectacular and thoughtful movie.Movie Review: Behind the scenes of round one
Summary: 4 Stars
I remember well the evening Operation Desert Shield morphed into Desert Storm. Everyone knew the invasion of Iraq would come soon after Saddam Hussein failed to meet the January deadline set by President Bush. What we didn't know for sure was how soon that attack would take place. Hours after the deadline passed, American military forces unleashed a maelstrom of destruction on Iraq. Cruise missiles and bombers soared over Baghdad with impunity, and the only news network there to capture it all live was CNN. It's difficult to imagine now, but Ted Turner's cable news network was essentially an unknown entity in 1991. Most, if not all, of the on-air personnel were largely unfamiliar to the American viewer. You might watch CNN if you stumbled over it on a pass through the cable channels and saw something interesting, but you simply did not make a habit out of watching the channel regularly. Nowadays, we have a host of cable news networks drawing viewers away from ABC, NBC, and CBS in droves. The coverage provided by CNN of those bombing runs in Baghdad thirteen years ago is primarily responsible for the success of pay cable news.
"Live From Baghdad," a made for HBO film, revisits the events that led up to that epochal moment in television news history. CNN producer Robert Wiener (Michael Keaton) jumps all over the Iraq assignment at the channel's Atlanta headquarters, figuring that events there will soon heat up to a fever pitch and thus create career making opportunities. He brings in the brash Ingrid Formanek (Helena Bonham Carter), Judy Parker (Lili Taylor), and cameraman Mark Biello (Joshua Leonard) to assist him in digging up the dirt in Baghdad. The trip over to Iraq exhausts these pampered journalists, as does the drudgery of setting up shop. We see the intrepid reporters hiring a translator, securing lodgings, finding bugs in their hotel room, and attempting to set up contacts with the notorious Ministry of Information. As we soon learn, working as an American journalist overseas is not an easy job. First, you have to live as high on the hog as you can. After all, you're an American; no one can expect you to live in a hovel. Second, transmitting a story from a country on the brink of war is headache inducing. Third, the journalistic field is dog eat dog; if you're not working on a story every day, not finding an angle everyone else isn't working on, you may as well throw in the towel.
Well, Wiener and his associates overcome most of these difficulties. Bob even strikes up a friendship with Naji Al-Nadithi, the Iraqi in charge of dealing with foreign correspondents. Both Al-Nadithi and Wiener profess to want peace, but larger issues keep getting in the way. For example, the CNN crew convinces the Iraqi government to let them into Kuwait to cover the now infamous incubator story. Unfortunately, the reporters become the story when accusations arise that Hussein's government is using them to propagate its own version of events. A few stories dealing with American workers trapped in Iraq, and the problems at the American embassy, act as filler for the big finale. As the deadline for invasion nears, the other news agencies leave the country, but Wiener and a few members of his crew decide to stick it out. Joining them are three now famous individuals: Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, and John Holliman. Thanks to Wiener's deft handling of the Iraqis (or is it the other way around?), the reporters witness the air strikes raining down on Baghdad outside of their hotel room window and manage to transmit video and audio transmissions to Atlanta via a special communications gizmo. Thus CNN scooped the other networks and the rest, as they say, is history.
I generally liked "Live From Baghdad." Keaton and Bonham Carter do a good job with their characters, as does David Suchet as Al-Nadithi. It's always nice to see the beautiful Lili Taylor in another movie. The film portrays Peter Arnett (played by Bruce McGill) as a devil may care boozehound, a depiction that provides a few humorous scenes. Too, the special effects used to recreate the air strikes are quite frightening. Regrettably, I have a few problems with the film. My opinion of the American media systems is at an all time low, and has been for many years. I think the emphasis on churning out new stories at breakneck speed contributes to many problems, the least of which is sloppy and superficial reporting. We see that here with the incubator story. Moreover, and probably most important, is how the film attempts to portray these reporters as heroes. C'mon folks! They sat in a hotel room and stuck a camera out the window. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have that job any day compared to flying the planes over Baghdad or serving as a soldier in the ground invasion that followed the air war. The media make themselves out to be heroes because anyone else who can prove otherwise never gets airtime.
Still, I did enjoy the movie and would watch it again. HBO discs rarely offer anything in the way of extras, but this DVD does. You get cast and crew biographies and a commentary track from director Mick Jackson. I haven't subscribed to HBO for many years now, so I never heard about this film until I stumbled over it quite by accident a few months ago. I think the irony of its release date, coinciding with the second invasion of Iraq by the younger Bush in 2002, is more than amusing. I'm surprised the movie didn't engage in blatant, far left propaganda but tried to depict both sides of the conflict. Perhaps I'm wrong, and if so you should watch the movie and judge for yourself. You'll probably like it.
Movie Review: Great Docudrama!
Summary: 4 Stars
From the opening frames of Michael Keaton trying to weasel his way into what he suspects will become the assignment of a lifetime, this production of CNN producer Robert Wiener's best-selling book, "Live from Baghdad" is a tightly shot, nerve-racking melodrama depicting how the CNN team bribed, cajoled and maneuvered their way into the story about the road to war in Iraq in 1990-91 and wound up being the only news network to cover the actual outbreak of the American bombing campaign. In the process they also single-handedly vaulted the reputation and stature of CNN into becoming the premier news source for the world at large. In one provocative scene, it shows the eyes of Saddam Hussein and George Bush after the first night of the war, both of them focused on the TV screen before them, tuned in to CNN.Wiener literally sneaks the small and ill-regarded CNN team into Baghdad after the invasion of Iraqi forces into Kuwait amid threats form American President George Bush that the Iraqi invasion meant a certain American military response with an international coalition. Keaton plays the ambitious and neurotically-driven Wiener quite well, and he has an excellent leading lady by way of Helena Bonhan Carter, playing his erstwhile assistant producer, Ingrid Formanek. By far the most interesting character depicted is the Iraqi Information Minister Naji, is played to perfection by David Suchet (of Poirot fame on BBC TV). What ensues is a clever and dangerous `cat and mouse' game in which Wiener takes what victories as can be grabbed and dispersed over the secure lines he has conned the Iraqis into allowing. For example, they film Saddam's frightening interview with a young British boy, and without any voice over, catch the essence of the extreme fear of the boy in a way that both electrifies the world wide audience into understanding how horrific Saddam is and puts the lie to the idea that such hostages were merely the "guests "of the regime.
But the CNN team is manipulated and used by the Iraqis as well. In one particularly telling case, they are allowed to go to Kuwait city to interview doctors to quell the rumors of Iraqi soldiers having stolen incubators while leaving infants dying on the cold hospital ward floors. At the hospital, Wiener discovers the doctor is trembling with fear, an indication that the whole interview is a set-up, and when he attempts to alter the situation, finds himself and the crew forcibly ejected and manhandled back into the escort vehicles and quickly flown back to Baghdad. Arriving back in the city, he finds a nightmare situation; the Iraqis have meanwhile already leaked the news story they want, that being that the CNN team had found no evidence of the stolen incubators in Kuwait. Suddenly, the CNN team becomes the story of the day rather than just reporting it.
The final scenes leading to the initial American bombing attacks are accurate, well-produced, and nerve-shattering, as the team finds itself alone in the hotel and free to report the exclusive unfolding story of the invasion with an incredible job of voice-over reporting `live from Baghdad". The film is a thought-provoking production, and the "location shots" are quite realistic and very believable as being Baghdad, which obviously they were not. The panorama provided of the aftermath of the first night's bombing is horrific, and clearly portray the cruel and savage nature of modern warfare. While the movie pulls no punches, it is fairly apolitical, sticking to the basic story of how it is that CNN came to be the sole source of news for the first few days of the war, and how that happenstance launched CNN into becoming the news organization it is today. Enjoy!
Movie Review: FIRST CLASS TAKE ON WAR-TIME JOURNALISM DESPITE MINOR GUFFS
Summary: 4 Stars
Yet another crisp production from HBO, a glimpse into the life and travails of reporters who covered the first Gulf War. Adapted from the memoirs of a real reporter, Bob Wiener.
How easily this could have gone down as a lame self-aggrandizing project underwritten by one member of the Time Warner family on behalf of another. But it's riveting drama instead, with dollops of integrity thrown in for good measure.
While the film is surely guilty of toting the CNN badge at times (it's just a TV channel folks) it does a remarkable job in capturing the grim realities of war time coverage, including many honest protrayals of the failings of the crew. The horror wreaked on Kuwait is brought back vividly during a sequence in which Wiener and his team travel to Kuwait to investigate allegations that Iraqi troops had ripped babies out of incubators as part of their plundering. Such news is hard to come by though, as is palpably evident in the hunt for that prize interview with Saddam Hussein.
Blood-curdling mindgames, inscrutable obstacles, ethical question marks, even a romantic subplot (which I believe could have been snipped a bit) -- the movie has oodles smooshed in, most of which have a powerful ring of truth and a striking sense of authenticity, as relevant, insane, urgent as tomorrow morning's headlines.
Heartily recommended all-round entertainer for discerning viewers.