TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

SnoopyStyle Reporter Jeremy Scahill is the author of the Blackwater about the covert wars from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. Scahill travels back to Afghanistan to investigate questionable NATO killings. He interviews Afghan witnesses of a deadly night raid in Gardez bringing it to the uncaring ears of congress. As he digs deeper, he discovers a covert unit Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that reports directly to the White House. JSOC launches up to 20 raids a night in Afghanistan, but none of it is public. Then he finds that JSOC is fighting worldwide starting even in Iraq which Scahill admits he missed the first time around.It's definitely one sided and Scahill has a history with the war on terror. He may not be wrong. It's definitely gone mostly unreported by the mainstream press. It's not like those killings are investigated throughly by anybody. The problem is that it's hard to confirm much of this. However much of it could be true. When the subject is this murky, there is no guarantee of anything.I do disagree with the concentration on Awlaki because of his American citizenship. Of course, he's the sexy subject. American citizen getting killed is worth a thousand others, and there is the sexy legal aspect. But it drives the movie into a corner. Nobody will ever be convince that Awlaki is a nice innocent boy who got caught up with the events. It's another thing to say that killing children and pregnant women is bad. This moves the morality goal posts. Trying to understand why somebody would turn terrorist doesn't mean anybody would sympathize with the terrorist.There are a lot of first hand new information. It's great to see investigative reporting on such a dangerous subject still being down. Shining a light on this dark corner is very important. However there is a general premise that the blow back exceeds the advantage of the kill list. It's a murky premise that Scahill doesn't always excel in. The movie wants to shock the audience with the merciless allies in Somalia, but it doesn't exactly have any answers itself. It's a better investigative piece than a convincing argument.

The_Jimmer For those of you so willing to vilify our government over things done in war, where is your outrage at the acts of terror done to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, diplomats, students and missionaries done by these savages over the decades? In war things go wrong sometimes. It is not planned that way, it just happens. We don't go in looking to kill civilians, but for some reason you seem to forget the intentional and deliberately gruesome be-headings these people performed on captives and innocents. Having worked in this "field" for many years I can say that while there are inevitable regrets, we never, ever go in with the purpose to do harm to innocents.The fact that so many of you are willing to damn your own government along with the men and women who keep you safe in your cushy beds watching netflicks and twitting your latest "bad day at work" scenario is a sad example of the depths to which our country has sunk. Maybe if you spent more time off facebook and out of starbucks you would have a more realistic view of the world and not believe every film, book, or new commentary that pops up.If you dislike the U.S. so much go live in the mountains of Afghanistan or Iraq with the people you seem to idealize and see how long you last and how long they remain your friends.

Arnror_II Testimony after testimony, document after document, who now in the world still believes in this once great nation.Jeremy Scahill, Bill Maher, Michael Moore, and every American citizen who knows the truth about their government, should be ashamed of themselves. They have the power to lead their country in the next revolution, yet they sit on their asses making movies and comedy. Somebody, sometime is going to take down the powers that be in the US, and when that happens, I'm joining.This is obviously a movie that makes you feel something, or confirms the feelings you already have, towards this world terrorizing band of merchants

Chris Cleary I loved this documentary for the most part but felt the narrator was mellow-dramatic at times. i also found the approach of storytelling quite tedious and a little self-indulgent. I understand the narrator needed to tell the story in this way as he was the journalist who began the investigation over a decade ago, but I felt at times it lacked creativity. My biggest problem with this documentary was it's ending. The story just seemed to go nowhere; or 'fell off a cliff" as my documentary tutor would say. The journalist had copious amounts of video evidence to which he done nothing about other than put it in his film. Why did he not bring it to the Whitehouse and demand comment and put the Generals of JSOC under pressure?The line 'I realize now this story has no ending" for the fact the war on terror will always be in operation is a cop out on the producers part, it's a lazy way of saying I have worked so long on this film which has no ending but I want to get it out into the public domain. I feel in the end he was blinded by the excitement to release it rather than wait another 2 years to find a strong conclusion.Apart from the above it is still an excellent documentary which is thoroughly enjoyable and well deserves its nomination for the Oscars, however I do not think it will win for its storytelling element over its political message.