Shock and Awe (2018)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Completely left-nut, everything is George Bush's fault B.S. I was hoping for the true story that was promised.

The true shock and awe of this film's premise is that an entire nation was duped by George W. Bush and his warmongers with a false pretext for going to war against Iraq in 2003. The focus of the film is on a tiny number of reporters for the Knight Ridder outlet, who came to believe that the Bush administration's promotion of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein was a lie.While the reporters in the film were not of the level of tenacity of Woodward and Bernstein, the Watergate premise was precisely the goal of filmmaker Rob Reiner, who reserved the role of the crusty newspaper editor for himself. The film opens with a quote from journalist Bill Moyers about the importance of a "diverse, independent, and free media" to a democratic society. The film is successful in demonstrating that thesis. It is also obvious that the absence of objectivity of the mainstream media is even more disgraceful today than it was in 2003 at the start of the Iraq war.A shortcoming of the film is that it did not follow through on its premise that the Iraq war was a misguided fiasco. A number of statistics were flashed on the screen, which were used to show the tremendous costs, loss of life, and destabilization of the Middle East, leading to the main question posed by the filmmakers: "How the hell did this happen?" Yet, there are some who still stand behind the Iraq war, including current national security advisor John Bolton. While I personally agree with the filmmakers, the chaos for the people of Iraq could have been unfolded more completely in the film.Still, the film was successful in showing how, in the climate following 9/11, there was not enough push back and dissent against the Bush administration's decision to go to war, the complaisant members of Congress who enabled him, and the pathetic effort on the part of the media to fail to explore the facts. The war in Iraq also set the tone for this nation in what has become a nearly perpetual state of war this country is fighting somewhere on the planet. A decision to go to war was made, and the Bush administration, especially Cheney and Rumsfeld, used phony evidence provided the intelligence community to support it. The key moment in the film is the Colin Powell speech before the United Nations' Security Council with CIA director George Tenet sitting in back of him. In the film, Powell was described as "the last person standing between peace and war. " Yet Powell, backed up by the arrogant Tenet, seemingly had no difficulty in spinning the yarn about WMDs. With great understatement, Powell later referred to the speech as a "blot" on his record. Did Powell learn anything at all from his experiences in Vietnam and the doctrine that bears his name? The answer delivered in this film is a resounding "No."

Yipee! Another Woody movie rewriting history in order to make Republicans look bad... Bush & Cheney lied, but journalists search for the truth. Is it election season already? I want those first 30mins of my like back. Don't watch it unless you can stomach political propaganda disguised as a 'movie'.

As you would expect with such a stellar cast, fine performances all round. I think the message of this film is even more pertinent today. It is beholden on us all, to look with a critical eye, at what those in power are saying; is it true, where is the evidence? If each of us can take some measure of skepticism, as shown by the journalists portrayed here, our society will be all the better for it. This film does truly crystalise, the criminal actions of the leaders of the time and the abject failure of the leading media organisations, whose primary function, is to hold those very same, to account.