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100It's impossible to imagine anyone, right-leaning or left, coming away from this hugely important documentary unshaken by its representation of the United States and its military establishment.
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100It's a topical, iconoclastic documentary with the warmth and pace of a first-rate personal essay.
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91Jarecki is no glib ideologue thumbing his nose at power.
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90Picture sets the gold standard for political documentaries.
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88Why We Fight deserves high praise for making it that much tougher to wear blinders.
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88An agit-doc of unusual depth. It has a point -- that the primary business of America over the past half-century has been waging war -- and it supports that point with nuance, research, and a willingness to hear the other side of the argument.
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83There's plenty of ammunition here for liberal conspiracy theorists, which surely will limit the audience to those already in Jarecki's political camp. Which is too bad, for it is a sobering history lesson as well as a political polemic on foreign policy and the growth of war into America's biggest business.
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80A film that stands out for its passion, ambition and clarion-call sincerity, even amid the contemporary onslaught of political documentaries.
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80Memo to left-wing anti-Bushies: Stories like this work. Don't lecture. Tell stories! Much better!
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78Canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary.
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75There's no denying the particular political slant of Why We Fight, but Jarecki's thoughtful, nonconfrontational approach makes it absorbing viewing, regardless of whether or not you buy his arguments.
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75Whether we've reached the critical mass of "misplaced power" is the gist of the current national debate, and Why We Fight is a useful tool in that argument.
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A somber polemic that presents a convincing case against using war as an economic booster -- although, Jarecki argues, that is precisely what the United States has been doing under every president since Truman.
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75It's a deeply provocative piece of filmmaking.
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75The result isn't quite a Michael Moore movie without the hubris, but it's reasonably close. It's thoughtful, and you have to take it seriously and with respect.
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75The strength of this documentary lies in its balance, or at least the careful appearance of balance.
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75In addition to the usual pontificators like Gore Vidal, whose world weariness has assumed Olympian proportions, the director provides interviews with such right-wing counterparts as Richard Perle and William Kristol. Nobody is allowed much time to develop an argument.
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75Why We Fight attempts, somewhat sketchily, to connect the dots between Ike's Cassandra-like warnings and current events.
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75Ultimately, Why We Fight reveals itself as yet another leftie doc with an anti-war agenda. But the mere fact that it takes time to ask questions and listen to opposing viewpoints sets it apart from the pack.
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70Jarecki's film forcefully argues that the much abused word FREEDOM cannot paper over the conflicts between capitalism and democracy.
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70Adding to the film's underlying sense of urgency and unease is composer Robert Miller's haunting score, so reminiscent of Philip Glass' music for "The Fog of War."
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70The long line of recent muckraking documentaries that has preceded Why We Fight does nothing to diminish its force.
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70Jarecki says that his film doesn't precisely answer the question in his title. He is mistaken.
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70Despite Jarecki's varied success in bringing these six people's stories to life, their stories personalize our current geopolitical predicament and remind us that in a democracy no one can shrug off responsibility for the war.
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60This scary, eye-opening documentary looks back from a post-9/11 vantage point to see how Ike's prophecy has come horribly true.
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50The movie tells us nothing we haven't heard before.
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50A pretty entertaining case against our current war and question the integrity of our president, but more than that, these docs manipulate imagery, music and sound bites to work their audiences into a frenzy.
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50Mr. Jarecki forcefully, if not with wholesale persuasiveness, argues that our business is specifically war.
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50Unconvincing and ineffective; the many patches of ideological montage, growing like kudzu throughout the film, weaken the impact of its best moments.
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40There may not be two equal sides to every argument, but in giving such little credence to those who might oppose him, Jarecki makes us wonder what exactly it is he's so afraid of.
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This rehash of familiar pacifist arguments offers neither heat nor light. It's "Fahrenheit: Room Temperature."
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30Mr. Jarecki undercuts his own case -- not just undercuts but carpet-bombs it -- by using the same propaganda techniques he professes to abhor.
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