THE FOG OF WAR Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: Errol Morris Producers: Julie Bilson Ahlberg, Errol Morris, Michael Williams Director of Photography: Peter Donahue Cast: Robert S. McNamara Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew.

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Review by: Dan Tester
12/14/03

Being a bit of a political junkie, and certainly an Errol Morris fan, I was really looking forward to The Fog of War, a new documentary featuring life remembrances by Robert S. McNamara, the hawkish Secretary of Defense who was the architect of the Vietnam war. What I was expecting was an indicting exploration of McNamara's life, but what I got was something a bit different. Sure, it is indicting to a point, but then there is an often regretful, sometimes forgetful, but always fascinating McNamara facing down the camera, talking about his past glories, his past mistakes, and his demons, all with unflinching emotion and seeming honesty. Going into The Fog of War, I thought I knew McNamara -- the ruthless war monger who led us blindly into an impossible quagmire -- but left the film with a completely different opinion of the man.

I am not sure how to discuss the film without giving away the subtleties that make it great. I was just very taken with McNamara under the microscope. He is a very emotional man (sometimes quivering on the brink of tears) as he recalls those tumultuous years in Vietnam, and the mistakes that were made. But this is the subject matter I was expecting. What I wasn't expecting was the fleshed out narrative of the film that humanizes a man I always kind of thought as one-dimensional, possibly inhumane. His younger years are depicted (usually the most boring part of these films, but here it is important) as we learn about McNamara's humble beginnings, his progress up through the military during World War II, a bizarrely brief interlude at Ford Motor Company, and his ascent to the White House, where he was heavily embroiled in both the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the outset of that "military action" in the East.

It was the earlier portion of the film that was the eye-opener. I was completely unfamiliar with McNamara's life before 1962, and the portion involving World War II was fascinating. I had no previous knowledge, for example, of the utter destruction we imposed on Japan long before Fat Man and Little Boy made their visits. There are graphic montages of decimated cities across Japan (the result of "firebomb" attacks orchestrated by McNamara) that left devastation that is indistinguishable from the famous footage we have seen of Hiroshima. It was remarkable. As the death tolls add up on screen, I was really moved, and enlightened. It is only here that occasionally McNamara falters a bit in his memory of his involvement in these military actions, but still fully admits he was responsible according to the military hierarchy, and it is one of the few times in the film that he does not take full credit for the atrocities he oversaw. These scenes create an interesting human dynamic -- the aged, wiser philosopher reminiscing about his own past, seemingly remembering a stranger. And how military strategies can seem so evil in retrospect, but so strangely prosaic at the time.

Of course, the film veers into the Vietnam era, and it is here that a different perception of McNamara begins to emerge. I was always under the impression that he was the hawk, banging his fist on the table demanding more bombing, more bombing, more bombing, and blindly leading American troops toward an increasingly more unlikely victory. But to hear McNamara tell it (quite often backed up with eye-opening preserved audio tape with Lyndon Johnson), he was more of a voice of reason than I have ever known. I was floored by this. What an amazing movie The Fog of War is on that level. A complete redefinition of a man who, it seems, has been so unfairly pigeon-holed all these years. Let's not forget though -- McNamara is a man who made lots of mistakes, big ones, but he is so honest about them. This is not a movie that takes a stand (although I have to think Errol Morris himself probably had strong opinions going in), but instead lets a man with lots of regret, lots of pain, and lots to clear up, simply do so, with no manipulation whatsoever. Had Michael Moore directed this film, well, who knows -- I am sure McNamara would have had horns and a pitchfork at the end. But Morris is pure, he is fair, and he is brilliant.

Errol Morris is indeed one of the few "pure" documentarians left in our world it seems, at least in the mainstream. His films often feature dark or bizarre subjects and subject matter, with seemingly unlikable people who have done seemingly unforgivable things, but I always leave his movies with a real sympathy for the protagonist. Mr. Death, his previous film, is another example of this -- a straight-forward investigation of a lonely execution technique expert named Fred A. Leuchter who naively aided Holocaust Revisionists in a groundbreaking court case and became a virtual societal outcast in the process. Sure, helping Anti-Semites is a horrible thing to do, but Morris creates such a level playing field that we are still able to see the humanity in Leuchter, and feel pity and empathy in the wake of his vulnerabilities and failings, and the same happens in The Fog of War with Robert S. McNamara. This is how documentaries are supposed to be.

I went into The Fog of War thinking I knew it all, and left realizing I really knew very little. I left the film in awe of Robert S. McNamara in a way, not in regards to what he has done in the past, but in the way he owns up to it. He emerged to me as a really decent guy. I would love to hang out with him, have a cup of coffee, and just chat. Or maybe he could come over and just play board games. I would love to play Pictionary with Robert McNamara. Or Scattergories. Or Trivial Pursuit. But not Risk. My God, anything but Risk. I wouldn't stand a chance.

But as always, it is only one man's opinion.

(A Sony Pictures Classics release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 19, 2003. Expands to more cities at later dates.)