Fine work

I wish to respond to another reviewer who took McNamara's account of "the good deeds" of the World Bank (a piece in the supplementary section of the disc) as truth while dissing anti-corporate protesters. Buy a copy of the brillaint DVD LIFE AND DEBT. After you have watched LIFE & DEBT you will realise just how much MaC is B.S.ing.

Also FOG OF WAR is way too soft on Kennedy. For the record the Missile Crisis was solved by the US pulling out American nukes from Turkey in exchange for Soviet nukes being removed from Cuba. This is not mentioned.

Also Kennedy and his cohorts overturned democratic governments in favour of right wing dictatorships in a dozen countries.

They even sabotaged the 1963 Canadian general election no mention of that here.

Nor is Kennedy's responsibility for the Baathist coup in Iraq bringing to power the political regime that would later spawn Saddam Hussein (who had been on the CIA payroll as an assassin since 1959). Morris does not mention this nor regime change in Indonesia and Brazil that Mac was also involved in.
Nor does Morris challenge Mac over the fact that 2 weeks into his Presidency Kennedy organised a major covert operation to launch attacks into North Vietnam and that one month after being inaugerated Kennedy hired Henry Kisssinger as a special adviser.
Nor does Morris ask Mac about JFK/RFK's links to Joe McCarthy.

Riveting and informative

Rather than simply covering the Viet Nam war, Robert McNamara covers his entire career, from service in the Air Force in WWII into touching on his World Bank service. You will find out many things one never knew (or remembered). The fire bombing of Tokoyo, but who realized that there were about 67 other cities firebombed? He touches on the morality of that practice. How tantalizing the idea of how the Viet Nam war might have been had Kennedy lived and Diem not been overthrown. This is a documentary with a viewpoint, and that viewpoint is reinforced with the rapid presentations of images on the topics covered. Sometimes you wanted to say -- slowdown. Despite efforts of the interviewers to elicit a more detailed response on his feelings on the Viet Nam war, Robert McNamara declines to elaborate further than he has in the film, and invites viewers to read his books. This film is quite a frank discussion of the highs and lows of his service.

Some of the language within the documentary has parallels with the current world situation, as regards statements about bringing democracy to Viet Nam, and how well the training of the Viet Nam army was going. There is also good background in how the lack of understanding and knowledge of the other side's positions hampered significantly in what we did.

This is a very worthwhile documentary film. Whether you think Robert McNamara was a hero or not, his role and career certainly spanned a large portion of recent American history.

An overrated, overhyped, sleep-inducing bore!

Man, I can't believe all these positive reviews. To call this documentary a masterpiece is insulting to any intelligent human being. It's like saying "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is the greatest sci-fi film ever made! Throughout this film, many images are shown for barely a split second, one right after another in quick succession. Is this crap what they call "artistic"?!? I had to take Aspirin pills for God's sake! Anyway, the only truly compelling thing about this documentary is the original recordings of conversations between McNamara and Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Otherwise, I was either totally bored by the sluggish pace or annoyed by the so-called "artistic" filming technique. And speaking of McNamara, calling him a "war criminal" is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Did he make some bad choices? Yes. Do his lessons make any sense? No. But at least in my opinion bombing Vietnamese terrorists is nothing compared to what went on in 1930's and 1940's Germany. The very fact that this film won an oscar is only further proof that the Academy Awards is filled with complete morons. My advice is to stay clear of this snoozefest and look elsewhere for a compelling documentary about Cold War politics.