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This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The Fog of War is a great documentary because it has an intelligent subject and a wise filmmaker, who fearlessly tackles subjects that come stockpiled with burning questions. Director Errol Morris knows how to gear a discussion where he wants it to go, and utilizes the "Interrotron," which Wikipedia states is Morris' device where, "the image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face." In return, we get lively, crystal-clear picture quality and the subject often locks eyes with the audience members, showing a very personal relationship for the material at hand.The subject of the film is Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy administration and such events as the Bay of Pigs, the Tokyo bombing, and the Vietnam War. Basically, you can say McNamara was in charge of Defense during some of America's most trying, nerve-wracking times. Uncertainty plagued all officials, frustration loomed from world leaders, issues like Vietnam and civil rights left American citizens more divided than ever, and America seemed to be steered towards the calamity of nuclear war.McNamara and Kennedy were on the frontlines of political danger. McNamara recalls long, sometimes sleepless nights due to stress and indecisiveness on how to approach the war. He even states how meeting with world leaders was a strange process. At one point, it was said that Fidel Castro accepted the fact that the population of his country may plummet because of this war. It was as if he accepted that Cuba could be destroyed over this war. It is when McNamara discusses the bombing in Tokyo that killed thousands that it would be justifiable to try him and numerous other officials as war criminals.Having McNamara discuss the interworkings of his job and the stress and backlash every decision he made came with offers an emotional core to the film. I have a feeling the emotional relevance of documentaries is an unnoticed addition, but when it comes to down it, what you're hearing is a man who was criticized heavily during his days in office and now finally has the courage to speak for an extensive amount of time, in front of a camera, about his experiences as the Secretary of Defense. McNamara often tears up during the film, and this only adds to the idea he wants us to take away, which is the men behind these serious operations are indeed human.Furthermore, McNamara is an electric screen presence to say the least. In the film, he teaches us "lessons," eleven to be exact. They are short, concise sentences that help us understand the circumstances of war and the thought-process that guided him through the dark days of his time in office. Occasionally swayed on-topic by Morris, or directed by a strong question, McNamara speaks with the voice of a leader, rarely pauses, and always seems to have a response loaded up and ready to go. Late in the film, he states he answers every question he is asked with the answer to the question he wish was asked. Perhaps this justifies his quick-wit and immediate responses to every question.The strongest metaphor in the film involves a large array of dominoes scattered across a flat map. In slow-motion, Morris shows the collapsing dominoes with a beautiful blur-effect and thunderous sound. At the end, we see a slow-motion shot of the dominoes aligning back upwards to only be knocked down again sometime in the near future.The concluding points of The Fog of War are as followed: one is that politicians and political officials are human and aren't even totally sure of the moves they make. The second is that the idea of "the fog of war" is a real thing. It's the figurative mental cloud during a treacherous time that fogs your judgment and makes decision-making a hairy, difficult process. By the end of the film, McNamara clearly wants to finish talking. We can hear Morris ask trying questions such as the value and the gain of the Vietnam War on America's part and his personal opinion. McNamara ends the show by informing that he fears backlash if he were to answer these questions from either standpoint.Starring: Robert McNamara. Directed by: Errol Morris.

After spending an hour or so with an old man, a product of a important American university, a corporate player and a major decision maker in government policy, a man probably responsible for thousands of human deaths, one wonders why more of us have not been incinerated by bombs set loose by well-meaning madmen who are able to intellectualize and justify mass carnage with few second thoughts.This is an admirable slice of film-making, and while recognizing it's importance as a document, the ideas emanating from the human centerpiece didn't exactly thrill me; mass annihilation is not a particularly salubrious topic. This is a creepy, unsettling film about a man who learns quickly but whose messianic zeal is frightening. The film questions humanity's ability to learn from past mistakes and is seldom optimistic about it.

The Fog of War (2003)*** 1/2 (out of 4)Oscar-winning documentary from Errol Morris takes a look at the career of Robert McNamara, which went from WWII to Ford to John F. Kennedy and up to Vietnam. Through an interview with McNamara and countless bits of audio and archival video footage, we go through nearly sixty-years worth of material as McNamara explains the reasonings behind various events. THE FOG OF WAR is an extremely well-made documentary and a lot of credit has to go to Morris for the way he structured the film. The mixture of the interview footage with the archival footage was perfectly done and I think both suit the other extremely well and help make this film so memorable. Just take a look at the emotional scene where McNamara talks about the Kenneddy assassination and how he helped find the plot for him to be buried. Just look at the way we see McNamara's emotion face and words and then how Morris puts a picture up of Kennedy. A very simple move but an emotional one that really works. McNamara was 85-years-old when the interview took place but you certainly wouldn't know it because it looks great and his mind is obviously still sharp and he talks a mile a minute and is so captivating with each and every word. Even if you hate McNamara and everything he stands for you really can't help but be drawn into him and it's easy to see why he could control so much. The way he speaks, the power in his voice, the way his messages are delivered are just so right on the mark that you can't help but take notice of everything he's saying. THE FOG OF WAR is certainly one of the most interesting documentaries out there and it's really an important piece of history especially considering how much McNamara was involved in.

In some ways a simple "talking head" documentary - a lot of it is Robert McNamara (U.S. Secretary of Defence in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and therefore during a good part of the Vietnam War) simply answering questions. It's also combined with some good archival footage of some of the significant events of his lifetime, however, and it isn't exactly what you might expect it to be.I expected it to be largely a justification of McNamara's policies and actions regarding Vietnam, but it's more than that. Essentially McNamara takes his many life experiences - not only as Defence Secretary, but as an army officer during World War II, a professor at Harvard, President of Ford Motor Company, and Head of the World Bank - and develops from them eleven life lessons that he shares. Vietnam is a part of that mix, of course, but isn't really dealt with at length until the last half hour or so of the documentary, and he neither justifies nor admits to guilt about anything - at least not about Vietnam. At the end of the story (in a portion subtitled "Epilogue") McNamara is essentially given the chance to offer judgment on his Vietnam policies but declines, saying simply that he knows things we don't know, and he'd prefer it to remain that way. Fair enough. My impression is that if he were to respond to the question of whether he felt any guilt, he'd say "no. I did what I thought was right at the time." The eleven life lessons are largely common sense ones, and I don't think it's necessary to list them. The film can be watched to find out about them. One that did strike me, though, was "in order to do good, sometimes you have to engage in evil." This, of course, runs counter to the thought which is probably pre-eminent in society that "two wrongs don't make a right," and instead promotes "the ends justify the means" thinking. A couple of other statements McNamara made that stuck with me were his honest admission that, if Japan had won World War II, he and Curtis LeMay would probably have been tried as war criminals for planning the fire bombing of Japanese cities (actually, he goes so far as to say that they were war criminals) and his belief that had Kennedy not been assassinated, the United States wouldn't have become as deeply involved in Vietnam as it did under Johnson.It's an interesting documentary which offers a personal look at McNamara and his thoughts rather than just an assessment of his role in Vietnam. Well worth watching. 7/10