Live from Baghdad
A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.
-
- Cast：
- Michael Keaton , Helena Bonham Carter , Joshua Leonard , Lili Taylor , David Suchet , Bruce McGill , Michael Murphy
Similar titles
Reviews
Sorry, this movie sucks
Good concept, poorly executed.
Fresh and Exciting
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Some would try to pass this off as a good movie/documentary about the Iraqi war... It is actually trying to pass off as established facts testimonies that were already denounced at that time as being false such as the girl Naira testifying as to what she saw, when she in reality had never set foot in Kuwait. But who cares?? As long as very few people hear the denial, the propaganda has worked...If you watch this, stay alert and just watch it like you would watch "Broken Arrow"... fiction... or else you will end manipulated by the spin doctors who do their job perfectly well...
I guess this is a story based on real characters. You would have to be a real news junkie to say for sure, but I seem to recognize many aspects of the story as real history. And there is some real journalism history that shows up as news items in this movie. Sometimes journalism is news too.But history is the only worthwhile story here offered up by the script. Dialog is very weak and our two lead actors clearly have a hard time with it.Way down in the credits here at IMDB is David Suchet who plays Naji Al-Nadithi, a contact with the Iraqi ministry of information. He is only the actor who seems to have any fun with his part. I remember him from the excellent spy thriller, "The Falcon and the Snowman".
This film is a well-written and acted live-action documentary of Robert Wiener's experiences working as a CNN correspondent in Baghdad during the Gulf War. Overall, it is pretty good. The speeches all resonate, and it is good to see some of the atrocities committed by Saddam's army brought to light again; revisionist Americans love to paint the Gulf War as a "quest for oil", just as they love to browbeat America for using the atomic bomb during WWII. Obviously there are many sides to any story, and for the most part "Live from Baghdad" does a good job of showing what was really happening in Iraq, along with serving the Americans an occasional slice of humble pie for their brashness and xenophobia.Interestingly, the weakest part of the movie is the director. Mick Jackson has a lot of experience (I'm amazed to find out that he directed Steve Martin's "L.A. Story"), but his work here falls into two distinct categories: workmanlike and/or irritating. The workmanlike scenes aren't so bothersome. But occasionally he'll pull a trick out of his hat, and it's always hackneyed - particularly his fascination with long shots of people staring. This is one of those art house things that you just have to suffer through, along with the excessively talky relationship between Wiener and Ingrid. It is a distinctly American conceit, as seen in such dreck as "Pearl Harbor", to take something as colossal as a war and use it as a backdrop for a hamfisted love story. I also found it a little unsettling that the reporters were laughing and slapping each other on the back after the bombing, while outside their relatively safe hotel people were picking their loved ones out of the rubble.It is definitely a gigantic commercial for CNN, but you know that going in. The guy worked for CNN. If you watch a documentary about Colonel Sanders, you have to expect some fried chicken.Some people have dismissed the film as propaganda; I must point out that while it does paint our involvement in the Gulf War in a positive light, it makes no reference to the modern situation except to state that Saddam Hussein is still in power. If you were against the war, then of course there's no way you will like this film. But if you were against it without knowing anything about it except some friend of yours said "we're doing it for oil!", then you should do quite a bit of research ... and this film is as good a place as any to start.
"Live From Baghdad" is all about CNN producer Robert Weiner in the days leading up to the US bombing of Iraq from his behind-the-scenes Baghdad perspective. The film sticks little known Weiner out front and tries to build drama around his character but fails to deliver a human story as it ricochets off such issues as the emotional bond with a professional kindred (Bonham Carter); the blurring of the line between journalistic ethics and professional fervor; a producer's egotistical self interest endangering other correspondents and crew; and the whole Iraq perspective. What could have been real meat on this skeleton succumbs to shallow dramatic flair, lots of busy work, Keaton's too glib cuteness, etc. leaving just so much couch potato carrion. Nonetheless, this commercial for CNN from corporate sibling HBO will likely prove an adequate watch for the weary cable viewer. (C+)
