This was not a terrible film. As a political thriller, I've seen worse. The problem is that it's a thriller that no one cared about. Set during the major phase of operations in Iraq, Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his team are tasked with using intelligence garnered from an extremely sensitive source to locate weapons of mass destruction. But every site they check is empty. Frustrated, Miller tries to confront the White House lackey, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), and is given the brush-off. Poundstone's rival, the Middle East expert from the CIA, Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), scoops up Miller and sets him on a different mission: find the source of the intel, codenamed Magellan, and get the truth.
Here's the thing, by the time this movie came out, everyone already knew that we were never going to find any WMDs in Iraq. The outrage over the idea that our government deliberately misled us with falsified analysis had already run its course. Frankly, by 2010, no one cared anymore. We had a completely new administration and the time for finger-pointing was over. Is it fucked up? Probably. But that's the way the world works. If this movie had come out in 2004 or 2005 it might have had more of an impact. It could have whipped up the muttering populace into a frenzy and forced change. Coulda woulda shoulda.
Knowing all that, this movie feels completely toothless. It's anchored by solid performances and just reeks of earnestness, but it won't make you care about something that happened over a decade ago. It was old news before it even started production.
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