The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)

So much average

Great Film overall

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Daniel Ellsberg was a very, very important figure during the 60s and 70s and today most people 50 and younger probably have no idea who he is. This is a shame, as his story is fascinating and well worth hearing.The documentary begins in the mid-1960s. Ellsberg is a big name in the Pentagon. He'd served in Vietnam and was rather hawkish about the war. However, as he gained more and more power, he came into contact with more and more super-secret documents and what he read disturbed him. There in black & white he could see some evil facts. First, that the Gulf of Tonkin attack that justified President Johnson escalating the Vietnam War was a hoax! Yes, Johnson KNOWINGLY expanded the war and brought in US combat troops after the American public was informed American ships were attacked--but there was no attack! Second, that Pentagon and State Department documents showed that they KNEW the war was unwinnable--yet they were pushing to expand it and throw young folks into this mess! As a result, Ellsberg went from begin pro to anti-war. In fact, he began to speak out publicly. But, this wasn't enough--Ellsberg decided that he need to release these documents regardless of whether or not this would result in him being sent to prison. How all this later led to the downfall of the Nixon White House, you'll need to see for yourself.Overall, this is an excellent documentary. It uses contemporary film footage and modern interviews to tell the story of a man who felt compelled to violate his oath of loyalty to the President. See this--it's fascinating from start to finish.

If now we have Julian Assange and his feared Wikileaks to tells us the truth behind powerful organizations and their secrets we must thank that one day a man named Daniel Ellsberg who saw what's going wrong with another gigantic corporation named United States and its affairs during the Vietnam war and decided to be one of the most important characters in history by leaking to the press the infamous Pentagon Papers, a Top Secret study revealing the whole truth about what was really happening in Vietnam and the U.S. involvement in it since 1945.In "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers" directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith interview Ellsberg and other people involved in Dr. Ellsberg's career and life before and after the Pentagon papers affair, from his work on RAND Corporation and his entrance working in the Pentagon under the command of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. After seeing how bad things were in Vietnam (and he was there himself), after plans and more plans of increasing conflicts and more attacks in Vietnam, seeing that his work was being perpetrated for wrong things Ellsberg changed his views of what he was doing; and after attending a protest against the war, he decided to do the right thing: show to the American public the truth about the war, what was going on in Vietnam and show that his country had nothing to do in there.The documentary establishes all the risk this guy went through, how he executed the leaking giving the study to Senators who were opposed to the war and to 17 newsgroups, starting with The New York Times who was censored by Nixon because of the publishing of the papers, and all the medias who tried to publish the papers was censored until the Supreme Court decided that the censorship was wrong. In less than two hours the movie displays lots of information without being boring or too much extensive, everything is very interesting to follow, very contrived and well put together (but the first minutes are a little bit slow, you have to be persistent to watch it). The most captivating part is when we see all the Ellsberg and his friend Daniel Russo crusade after they were charged of espionage, and the whole controversy about the publishing of the papers and that are still relevant today in a time where secrets can't be revealed otherwise there's always someone who'll try to impeach, to suffocate the freedom of speech, and the freedom of press; in a world where just simply stand for something and to have an opinion still it's too dangerous and might cause a war, and by war is mean not only the armed conflict, but the idealistic conflict, the words conflict. Here's a film that shows us the man behind the act; a David among thousands of Golias; a man who worked and defended his country and was accused by it at the same time while trying to protect the country interests and lives; a man who changed things and fought for the right thing, taking all the necessary and unnecessary risks for it and even obtained more than he wanted. This is a real story with real persons and it's a great story to be seen. 10/10

Seen at Sydney Film Festival June 2010 in a giant picture palace from 1929, the State Theatre in Market St in Sydney centre. The director was present and gained much applause.All above comments are correct as to the content of the film. Great stuff.But further, the film is beautiful visually and aurally. No matter the absurdity or wickedness being discussed, the cinematographer and recordist have captured it with style and distinction.The cartoon moments are admittedly unnecessary, but everything else is top-rate, unlike so many current documentaries based on cheap video -- yes, Michael Moore's and dozens of others' -- so ugly as film in themselves.

John Lennon is probably the most famous peace activist during the Vietnam War. But it took an inside man who actually had been over there who would not only shed light on the history of the United States's involvement with Vietnam but upon whose actions actually led to the resignation of a sitting American president.Four years in the making, this got Ellsberg's participation as narrator and having the final word after publishing his best seller "Secrets" and subsequent book tour of "Secrets". Just like the book, it focuses on his career of being an outstanding Marine and researcher of nuclear energy that led to him being employed by Robert McNamara in 1961, then the Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy.However, Ellsberg's story really starts getting interesting when he's assigned to uncover covert operations of the North Vietnamese against American troops stationed in South Vietnam in 1964. What had initiated this was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which in itself later proved to be an American ship misfiring upon another but at the time blamed on the Vietcong.Ellsberg said he could only find one, a minor one involving two servicemen that became an excuse for the most damaging one sided bombing of one nation towards another the world has ever seen. In 1965, he went on a fact finding tour in which he dressed in battle fatigues and came back disillusioned as to why the United States was doing there.He worked in Rand, a military think tank in Santa Monica and because of his position, traveled to Washington, D.C. where he began to make friends and meet his future wife at non violent peace rallies. He realized he had access to documents that would later be called "The Pentagon Papers" that exposes the lies of presidents going back to Truman of the American involvement after France lost its colonies at Indochina.However, 1968's peace candidate would prove he was nothing of the sort and would be Ellsberg's chief antagonist for most of the documentary, the infamous Richard M. Nixon.I have seen negative comments about the cheesy animation, admittedly unnecessary because it's well known that Ellsberg's main role was to copy the documents and have been exposed to the New York Times to Nixon's chagrin. Ellsberg comes across quite heroically in this and even he was surprised that he played no small part in giving Nixon enough rope to hang himself that led to his resignation.Very chilling is hearing Nixon considering dropping atomic bombs on Vietnam as if all to the other bombs including the infamous Christmas bombing of 1972 wasn't enough. Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, comes across much better, giving words of caution and even heard early on of having a "Peace with Honor" exit strategy with Nixon within the first month Nixon was in office.Present at the screening at Beverly Hills Music Hall was Ellsberg's wife, Patricia Marx Ellsberg and film maker Judith Ehrlich. Scheduled to appear but he passed away recently, Howard Zinn is among the talking heads of this important documentary. Paralels of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan were not mentioned but still very difficult to ignore.This was echoed repeatedly during the q and a. Ehrlich did try to repeatedly to get Kissinger as this documentary does show him in a positive light but all attempts were futile. It is a quote from him that gives the title of this movie.She was more successful in getting John Dean, Nixon's counsel who got fired during the Watergate trials and bestselling author of "Blind Ambition", that gave first hand accounts of Nixon's involvement of ordering the break in Ellberg's psychoanalyst's office.Patricia gave a more personal side of her husband. He's now seventy-nine and probably has been arrested seventy-nine times as he still attends peace rallies and not pleased with the most current surge in Afghanistan.If Ellsberg hadn't done what he done in 1971, it's really hard to imagine what the seventies would have looked like in the political arena. There would have been no Watergate. The Vietnam War would have been prolonged and many more innocent people would have died. However, Ellsberg sadly notes that it doesn't look like our government has really learned its lesson. 58,000 American and over 2,000,000 Vietnamese lives were lost during the Vietnam War. No matter how one looks at it, that remains a very disturbing fact in American history.