Though it has an array of impressive action sequences and performances , I found this overall just a little too cheesy, especially considering it was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan who wrote the briskly engaging Lions for Lambs. Like, take Jennifer Garner’s character – though I liked her in the role (sorry to sound surprised, I just always still get her mixed up with Jessica Alba and Biel who aren’t quite so consistently impressive), literally the only thing that sets her apart from the others is this huge, “I’m the only woman here!” whine that’s shamefully overdone … here she is bursting into tears in the brief room; here she tells the soldiers not to cross the “pink line”; it feels like we’re meant to be impressed by a woman braving such situations but, oh dear, there she goes again crying over the coffins going home; I find it funny I haven’t got around to finishing this review until after seeing the other day’s “Daily Show” with the thing about Hilary Clinton’s “emotional moment”, ‘cos it’s kinda similarly infuriating, like, look, she’s a woman – see? emotional. Wow. Also, the marble thing I’d been told would be like a “Bruce Willis Sixth Sense moment!” really didn’t wow me much, and the overall message of, “ooh we’re all the same afterall!” was frankly done better in that moment at the end of Volcano when the little boy comments on everyone all caked in ash. Throw it on the “dazzlingly … empty” pile. Suddenly I feel like I’m seeing where all the “it was a bad year” guys were coming from with my recent watchlist. Is it too much to ask for a movie to be a movie from start to finish?

I feel the need to write this review as quick as possible because the more time that passes, that less I have to think about the movie. This is just a really generic tale that tells most of us nothing we haven’t heard before yet presents everything in this, “omg, did you hear?” kind of way. Even the poster is overly sensational – “What, you think we could make this up?!” Like, wow – the US kinda-sorta funded the current hash in the Middle East; a selfish senator saw a skinny orphan and had a change of heart; this is not news to me. I think the most succinct thing I can say of this movie is how about half an hour in I was saying to myself, “so, it’s not Catch-22 ...” ... I didn’t even like Catch-22 as a movie, lol, I much preferred it on stage. With Mike Nichols behind it, this movie should’ve been so much more scathing, even blatant, about what it’s saying; that there’s been even a whiff of Oscar buzz about it is laughable. The Eighties production design, the hair and makeup, are disastrous. It’s about the most epitomous of last year’s glossy but worthless movies I’ve yet seen.

I can’t for the life of me explain why I loved this but I did. Had I time to watch it again before the year is out (not that I’ve much of an excuse – at 88 minutes it’s astounding how much it covers), it’s likely it’d be topping my end of year list, and along with Away From Her it’s one of two films I really think should be up for Best Picture at the Oscars in February though I know there’s not a cat’s chance in hell with either (not to say I might not get ballsy and switch them into my predix at the last minute).

It’s ultimately the work of a liberal smart and world-wearied enough to know that a lot of the politics he once fought for have today gone too far just like the politics of the “enemy” – to the point where there are a lot of people like the student here who are supremely intelligent but so jaded by cynicism they feel not only that the world is beyond saving but also that they’re “above” saving it … that the world doesn’t “deserve” their help because of the way it’s beaten them down.

It’s been said many times that one doesn’t need sex, violence, and coarse language if you actually have something to say. It’s amazing that this movie manages to be just as scathingly political a film as Brian De Palma’s Redacted while being resolutely, humblingly mature about it and giving time to the other side too. It kind of made me feel ashamed for having praised the starkly crude De Palma movie so much. This one leaves you really thinking twice over the cynicism about politics so many of us have not so much taken for granted as absorbed into a status quo. I think this is that rare thing of a movie that could change people – or at least make them think about changing … or indeed, just having an opinion to begin with.