The lead up to the Iraq War is chronicled journalistically in the most compellingly chilling way in Rob Reiner’s latest, Shock and Awe. The title befits the story in a myriad of ways in that the moniker fits the viewer’s feelings after witnessing this true story of a war effort that led to thousands of American heroes losing their lives, thousands being permanently injured and the over a million Iraqis civilians who perished. All based on lies.
Reiner not only directs, but stars as Knight-Ridder editor John Walcott. He spearheaded a team of journalistic warriors that was on to the Bush Administration’s lies about Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s supposed effort to secure nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) right from the get-go. Like, literally in the days after the 9/11 attack, their sources were informing them that the president and his national security team had its crosshairs squarely on Hussein, even though all of the evidence—as we know—pointed firmly at Osama bin Laden.
The cast is sublime. Woody Harrelson stars Jonathan Landay, while James Marsden stuns as Warren Strobel, his journalistic partner in exposing the criminal efforts of our leaders at the time. The pair methodically worked their sources and do some serious digging to uncover shocking truths about what the administration was doing and thus, putting true American patriots in danger… all over a litany of lies.
It is a mesmerizing effort, as spotlighted in Shock and Awe, to uncover the truth and the resistance they encountered from all conceivable sides.
Knight-Ridder is a wire service, whose clients include some of the largest newspapers in the nation, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Inquirer and several other notable papers refused to publish these articles. Thankfully, a decent number still did run these articles that served as an indictment of American leadership that was leading us astray from the real mission of getting bin Laden.
Knight-Ridder’s writers methodically laid out the lies and the effort to take us into a war with an enemy that had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks on the United States in September of 2001. Worse still, the Iraqi dictator had no WBDs or the means or wherewithal to secure them.
Reiner shows in his film that when your major media clients essentially serve as “stenographers for the administration”—as Walcott points out, no one is doing their journalistic due diligence. Tommy Lee Jones stars as legendary Bronze Star-winning soldier and newsman Joe Galloway (the film We Were Soldiers starring Mel Gibson is based on his experiences in Vietnam), who joined the wire service as their investigation heated up. In the film, he so brilliantly states that “when the government f*cks up, it is the soldiers who pay the price.” As a vet of Vietnam, he keenly knows the price and the cost of being misled into a war. Watching Jones as Galloway is a revelation because his stunned reaction to what is going on mirrors ours in a way that is powerful, frustrating and in the end, utterly infuriating.
What else is stunning about Shock and Awe is how these heroes who essentially are trying their best to save American lives from dying in vain, are met by complete resistance by friends, family and countrymen and women who accuse them of being unpatriotic, not “supporting the troops” and worse still, trying to undermine the President of the United States. Excuse me? The idea that we as a nation are just supposed to blindly follow our leaders goes against everything the Founding Fathers did in setting up our great democratic experiment.
But, that is where we have arrived as a society.
What is most fascinating is how this film is firmly about what happened during the Iraq War and the months prior to its illegal beginnings. But, it could easily also serve as an eye-opening experience to understand the origins of the political landscape we inhabit today. Our leaders lie, people know those “facts” are anything but, and much of the population (and the mass media as a whole) shrug their shoulders and move forward with their day.
Sound familiar?
They say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. As Jones’ character Galloway sees parallels to the ramp up to Vietnam in what is happening to get us into the Iraq War, the viewer can easily see the mirror between what Bush did with the Iraq War and the current administration’s handling of well, everything.
Shock and Awe has its stand-outs, such as Jones, Reiner, Harrelson (whose hot streak continues) and Marsden. But, there is something about the material and what it has to say about the role America plays in the world that has drawn a slew of brilliant thespians to the fold. Then again, Reiner is so beloved as a helmer that he clearly had to be a huge draw as well.
Richard Schiff (The West Wing) stars as an unnamed source for Galloway, known only as The Usual. His several scenes in a Thai restaurant with Jones are ripe with acting fireworks from two truly gifted souls.
Jessica Biel stars as Lisa, the love interest of Marsden’s Strobel while Milla Jovovich stuns as Vlatka, the wife of Harrelson’s Landay. Both are not merely other-half characters meant to illustrate that these journalists had a home life that was challenged by the work they were doing (each received repeated death threats). Instead, and thankfully so, both reinforce the tragic narrative laid out by screenwriter Joey Hartstone.
In prepping for her first date with Strobel, Lisa not only read all of his articles, but also delved deeper into the history of the Iraqi region and thus provides the audience a background for the mess in the Middle East that is thousands of years in the making. Vlatka, a survivor of the Yugoslavia civil war, repeatedly warns her husband about the evils of power that is chilling, given that one would never think such things could occur here in the good ole US of A. Yet, it happens. And no one blinks an eye… except our journalists who are trying everything they can to ignite a fire in the American people to stop some seriously needless killing.
Worse still, military folks who speak to our journos stress that the war in Iraq is taking valuable resources away from the true enemy—bin Laden. There is even a scene in the movie where it is established that it is the Iraq War’s distraction that is why bin Laden was able to escape Tora Bora and head into Pakistan. See… it’s infuriating! We know all these things because history has told us, largely due to the reporting of the Knight-Ridder writers. But it still doesn’t soften the sting witnessing it over again in Reiner’s stunning, important and extraordinarily exquisite work.
Grade: A