It's hard not to want to like Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War. Produced and directed by Robert Greenwald in association with the lefty organizations MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress, Uncovered gathers incriminating footage that shows our current administration justifying the reasons behind the Iraq quagmire and counters it with testimonials from former government workers whose warnings about the potential dangers in invading went unheeded before, during and after the war. But the film nearly collapses under amateur film techniques, terrible use of graphics and an annoying soundtrack that deserves the same Fallouja greeting those four mercenaries received a couple of weeks back.
This is Greenwald's third film in what film historians will one day designate his Un- period, following producer credits for 2002's Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election and last year's TV flick Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth about Enron. Greenwald begins Uncovered by introducing an impressive roll call of experts that serves as the thesis for his criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq policy: former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Watergate whistleblower John Dean, diplomat Joseph Wilson, and the ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War, to name the most prominent. Greenwald uses these pundits to punishing effect, splicing together speeches by Bush and Co. throughout last year and balancing them with the calm, dissident views of the experts.
Such a tactic works best in two separate segments: one featuring Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, the other Secretary of State Colin Powell's lecture before the United Nations a few weeks after asserting that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. The latter, especially, plays as a macabre comedy, as Powell—visibly straining to make his argument, CIA director George Tenet looking blithely on behind him—presents his case before a skeptical, outraged General Assembly. “I would have to comment here on Secretary of State Colin Powell's debut as an imagery analyst,” said one bemused 27-year CIA veteran, standing next to a television with an image of Powell pointing to pictures that supposedly showed a biological decontamination vehicle but were in actuality a fire truck. “It was highly embarrassing for those of us who know something about the business. We couldn't tell whether this was an honest mistake by those who now do the imagery analysis . . . or whether perhaps Colin Powell was being set up.”
More entertaining—or disturbing, conversely—is Uncovered's tracking of the devolution surrounding Bush's contention that Iraq deserved invasion for harboring weapons of mass destruction. Greenwald does this by employing rapid-fire soundbites of Cabinet commentary on the subject, starting with Bush remarking in an Oval Office interview that “we found 'em”; to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flatly saying, “I don't think we'll discover anything”; to Bush blubbering through a joint East Room interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, too confused to even offer a coherent question.
It's these damning foot-in-the-mouth moments that save Uncovered from horrific production values. Although earnestly made—the documentary ends with the various wonks ruminating on patriotism in our Ashcroft times—Uncovered unfortunately displays all the directorial skill of a 2 a.m. beauty-product infomercial. Transitions between segments mainly consist of fade-outs that appear as if the batteries are dying on your television; floating text used to highlight crucial points are little more than target practice for launched popcorn kernels. And—even more disturbing than the veep's ties to Halliburton—Uncovered resurrects the long-dead cliché of using spinning newspapers as a dramatic devise. Worst, though, is an eardrum-violating soundtrack that veers between Carmina Burana-dramatic chorals, bombastic violins and chintzy, positive organs that probably date from a 1980s Xerox training video. Then again, how much can viewers truly expect from a musical score credited to one Mars Lasar?
Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War—directed by Robert Greenwald and starring your un-elected President—screens at the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Dr., Newport Beach,
(949) 253-2880. Wed., 11 a.m. $10.
