Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Rob Vos Adam Curtis knows very well how to tell a story. This strong political analysis about two major movements in contemporary history, Islamic fundamentalists and the Neo-conservatives feels like a thriller. It is a long, breathtaking political video-clip. It starts with the hypnotic intro and the haunting music of Brian Eno's 'The big ship' and after that you will be in a brilliant and intelligent edited film, in a roller-coaster of imagination and suggestion. At the same time a lot of major players in the field are interviewed and the research is outstanding. Nevertheless there are some remarks to make about the trilogy of Curtis. The storyline of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the Neo-conservatives as almost similar political movements of machines of fear is in my opinion interesting and plausible but too much constructed as a simple story of cowboys and Indians. In Curtis vision it seems like there is no room for chaos or coincidence. Although the result is an almost hermetic political vision, this documentary is a firm, intelligent and important statement and one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Try to see it somewhere.

totalkhanage A wonderful piece of television. Thoughtful, focused and not afraid to lay bare a few truths with a well executed calm authority. It is such a shame that the pathetic US media is too scared to show such an informative and surprisingly informal piece of work. The government must have no way of fighting back against such candid and well researched material. I can not recommend this series enough for all Americans and fear not, even through it consists of considerably dark material there is a surprisingly optimistic ending and prediction of the future. Hopefully mankind still has enough decency and common value to stop dictators and unjust leaders from destroying the common good.

Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3) I have already seen two of the three episodes of this excellent BBC documentary which the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is showing in three parts on its CBC Newsworld channel. I will see the third one tonight.I can understand why it has never been shown in the States and why it probably never will. These three small TV hours contain way too much brutal truth for any American to endure with any degree of comfort. The parallels between the devious agendas of the American Neo-Conservatives and the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists are uncanny: same logic, same malevolent means, same reliance on fear instead of reason.I can't understand, though, how Michael Moore' s sentimental and illogical hogwash documentaries get such a large release when a film like this one, which involves much more hard work and intelligence never gets to be shown where it could do the most good: in America.

tresdodge This is a highly intelligent, informative, sometimes humorous and superbly edited series of programmes that look at two types of dominant fundamentalist groups that exist in the Twenty First Century. On the one side we have the Neo-Conservatavists, mostly all white, affluent Christian men (believers in Creationism mostly), who Western society is obviously supposed to value highly compared to the dark, foreign 'others' that make up the 'terrorists' from 'un-civilised' lands. The programmes chart the historic roots of these two fundamentalist groups, and reveal that they both came about from a belief in the corrupt and morally unsound nature of Western society after the threat of the Cold War dissolved. The programmes look at the the War on Terror and Curtis clearly presents the way that 'Nightmares' about terrorism can coerce and manipulate the 'big beast' that is society. Through propaganda, the media becomes a tool where lies are peddled and fear is stoked up to tame and create (un)believable truths in the mind of the general populace. For example a clip from a news programme shows lies about Al Qaeda being a highly organised network with vast caves full of high tech computers and complex equipment. This has been shown as a complete fabrication among many supposed truths presented to the general public.The series is principally excellent in enlightening us with 'facts' but also the way in which music and editing is used to bring the message across. For example a plethora of clips from the film 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' and the use of traditional American music with images of Al Qaeda. I found this to be a humorous and unique touch that really makes these programmes stand out. Overall what this film reasserted once again is that these Neo Conservativist terrorists are no better than un-organized or partly organised Islamic terrorists. George W Bush is a terrorist of the worst kind, who through repeating lies long enough and hard enough to his scared citizens can manipulate them into believing ,for example, that an unprovoked and illegal war is justified. This idea of good versus evil is a dominant myth within Western societies, and George W Bush et al know that through creating this 'other' evil and building it up continouously, whether it exists or not one can win people on your side. The prime example being his victory in the Presidential elections, a great many of the people interviewed said they would vote for Bush because he would keep U.S.A safe. Which is of course quite the opposite in my opinion. A great series I hope Curtis and his team make many more enlightening and technically competent documentaries.