Live from Baghdad | Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter

Live from Baghdad | Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter | Good

DVDs:

Live from Baghdad

	Live from Baghdad Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter HBO Video, 2003 average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Live from Baghdad tells the story of how CNN became the only news agency to cover the first Gulf War from within Baghdad. Michael Keaton stars as CNN executive producer Robert Wiener, who took a small news team into the Iraq capital after the invasion of Kuwait. Along with producer Ingrid Formanek (Helena Bonham Carter), Wiener jousted with teams from other networks, fought with antiquated equipment, and wrestled with Iraqi attempts to control information--in particular with an information minister named Naji (the outstanding David Suchet). After numerous setbacks, Wiener's team triumphed when they had the only connection from inside Baghdad as the American forces began dropping bombs. Though a TV-movie about TV news coverage is a bit incestuous, Live from Baghdad makes for compelling viewing; the script and direction are taut, performances are excellent all around, and the perspective on the war is multilayered. --Bret Fetzer

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Fantastic movie!

This is a great movie because it is about the first Gulf War. I think people forget what happened then and how it relates to today. It is also an interesting accounting of the beginning of 24 hour news. All actors do a great job.

Good

This captured the competitiveness the networks had and still have regarding war coverage. Michael Keaton is great as the somewhat overanxious and egotistical CNN producer Robert Weiner. As a journalist myself, I enjoyed seeing how the press would jockey for the story and try to get the fresh angle, the upperhand with the news consumer. Helena Carter is excellent in the film in her role as a CNN co-producer, contrasting Weiner's brash ego with good old common sense. One of the big messages in the movie is that persistence pays and CNN was the most persistent network, it appeared as the Gulf War broke out.

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Sound and Fury

This is probably a fairly accurate representation of how newscasters operated in Iraq during the Desert Storm War, and of how they operate in general in front-line, crisis situations. I think the movie was aiming at evoking viewers' admiration for the newscasters' courage and stamina in "getting the story." It was supposed to be a paean to CNN as it established itself as a credible, round-the-clock news source during this War. But for me, the movie had the opposite effect. It showed how rash and ultimately futile most of the media people's actions on the scene were.

Everyone is either on an adrenaline rush in this movie, or else is waiting it out in a tavern getting sloshed and sloppy. There is no happy in-between when any sane, informative reporting can take place. During their "on" periods, newscasters are seen rushing down corridors, pushing each other, jostling, jockeying to get the story before other broadcast networks can get it. And the story is usually some canned speech by Saddam Hussein or one of his cabinet members. People stoke their sense of self-importance by surrounding themselves with ringing phones. They agonize over power outages. It's all frenetic activity - signifying nothing.

Because when the War really starts, all that we get out of these many reporters' efforts are exclamations announcing another SCUD missile hit. We get "Wow! That was a big explosion! Wow, another one! The sky is lit up!" People risked their lives to tell the listening American public that a bomb just lit up the sky?

It seems there would have been opportunities for intrepid reporters to go out into Baghdad and get stories that would really have mattered - stories that would have enlightened the American public about the climate of opinion there, about conditions among Iraqi citizens, and about reasons for going to War or not going to War. But virtually nothing like that comes across. In the end, it all comes down to, "Wow, that was a big one!"

So I do think this movie is worth watching, but probably not for the reasons it was made. Instead of coming away from the film with an illustration of how good and worthy our reporters are, you, like me, may come away with an illustration of how far our news coverage needs to advance in order to be a really useful tool in the democratic decision-making process.

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Reaffirms my opinion

While this movie was well written and acted, it did strengthen my opinion about those in the media. I know alot of people may disagree with me on this, but in this film I saw nothing more than sick, egotistical vultures scrambling around trying to find "the next big story" with little regard to the people they hurt. For those of you who view the media of being comprised of elitist know-it-alls, watching this movie will assure you that your assessment is correct.

There are many examples throughout the course of the movie. The obvious fear of the British child being held hostage by Saddam being reduced to merely being a great story. The members of the other networks basically saying that it is their job to tell viewers what is important and why. The CNN crew agreeing to keep quiet about atrocities they saw in Iraq and Kuwait to avoid being thrown out of the country (so much for "we report, you decide"). Weiner sympathizing with the Iraqi propaganda official despite the fact that a hostage he interviewed was kidnapped, most likely under the orders of the same official. And on, and on.

Bottom line, this movie does a splendid job of showing how most of those in the media are legends in their own minds who will stop at nothing to exploit any human tragedy and suffering in the hopes of making it big, although I'm sure that this is not what the makers of the film were going for. There is nothing honorable about them. They were, and are, vultures.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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