I don't quite understand the high rating for this film. It felt very ordinary to me.
McNamara is obviously a bright guy and leaves one hopeful that old age does not always cause a reduction in ones mental faculties. (Or, alternatively, that if you start out with a whole big lot of mental faculties, you're still gonna seem smart at 85, even if you've lost some.) Other than that inadvertent point, however, the documentary doesn't really tell a reasonably well-informed viewer much that one doesn't already know. McNamara is wise enough to recognize that he had an important role in the Vietnam debacle, but canny enough not to volunteer to take on more responsibility than he can comfortably shoulder. His conversations have the feel of having been well-honed in many an academic debate and cocktail-party social hour. Nothing too gruesome, nothing too righteous and always willing to acknowledge (with a genial smile) the possibility that he is wrong.
The frustration is that McNamara refuses to engage in any discussion of the moral/personal issues raised by his actions and that the interviewer lets McNamara get away with this refusal. Ultimately, therefore, the film sometimes feels like little more than an "insider-y" history of the war, narrated by a sort of "war celebrity." Ultimately, what's the point? I suppose McNamara has the right to keep his own counsel as to his personal feelings (and as to what was going on with his family -- he hints at all sorts of problems, including a FIRM assertion that all of his family benefited from his move into government...that just cries out that the opposite was the case) but if he's not going to open up, what we're left with feels like something one could have read more quickly in a magazine article.
The other problem with the film is that it ends up feeling both over-edited and padded with endless clips of bombs falling and meaningless close-up shots of tiny bits of text ("houses destroyed", "troop strength", "warmonger" etc. etc.) that are clearly there just to add color, with no real value of their own. The interview feels stretched-out and the "11 lessons" feel forced into the film as a pretty arbitrary framing device...they certainly weren't part of McNamara's thinking and they don't really help organize the material.
Still, this isn't a complete waste of time. McNamara is an engaging speaker and it is interesting to hear some of the thought processes of one of the "best and brightest" who has run large parts of US policy for a long time. But the film stops well short of being great.
McNamara is obviously a bright guy and leaves one hopeful that old age does not always cause a reduction in ones mental faculties. (Or, alternatively, that if you start out with a whole big lot of mental faculties, you're still gonna seem smart at 85, even if you've lost some.) Other than that inadvertent point, however, the documentary doesn't really tell a reasonably well-informed viewer much that one doesn't already know. McNamara is wise enough to recognize that he had an important role in the Vietnam debacle, but canny enough not to volunteer to take on more responsibility than he can comfortably shoulder. His conversations have the feel of having been well-honed in many an academic debate and cocktail-party social hour. Nothing too gruesome, nothing too righteous and always willing to acknowledge (with a genial smile) the possibility that he is wrong.
The frustration is that McNamara refuses to engage in any discussion of the moral/personal issues raised by his actions and that the interviewer lets McNamara get away with this refusal. Ultimately, therefore, the film sometimes feels like little more than an "insider-y" history of the war, narrated by a sort of "war celebrity." Ultimately, what's the point? I suppose McNamara has the right to keep his own counsel as to his personal feelings (and as to what was going on with his family -- he hints at all sorts of problems, including a FIRM assertion that all of his family benefited from his move into government...that just cries out that the opposite was the case) but if he's not going to open up, what we're left with feels like something one could have read more quickly in a magazine article.
The other problem with the film is that it ends up feeling both over-edited and padded with endless clips of bombs falling and meaningless close-up shots of tiny bits of text ("houses destroyed", "troop strength", "warmonger" etc. etc.) that are clearly there just to add color, with no real value of their own. The interview feels stretched-out and the "11 lessons" feel forced into the film as a pretty arbitrary framing device...they certainly weren't part of McNamara's thinking and they don't really help organize the material.
Still, this isn't a complete waste of time. McNamara is an engaging speaker and it is interesting to hear some of the thought processes of one of the "best and brightest" who has run large parts of US policy for a long time. But the film stops well short of being great.