Call me a stickler, but if a movie is going to make claims about being realistic I expect that it be grounded in reality

OH,OH,OH, I know! George Clooney ain’t much of an actor. What do I win?

I say this:

You know what’s really sad? A lot of Americans who see this and don’t know any better are going to think that the movie is factually accurate.

And then Graeme fulfills the prophecy:

I thought it was good. It is a shock to you guys all people in the middle east aren’t portrayed as idiotic religious fanatics? It gives good insight in showing how people fall into the fundamentalist trap.

Seems like there is a fairly extensive littany of inaccuracies at the link I provided above.  Care to address anything, or is an emotional argument all you have?

Did you make a post like this about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ?

Can anyone reasonably expect a movie about religion to be factually accurate?  Who actually knows what the facts are?

I’ll see it soon enough, and I’ll be right about it.  Its not like this Hollywood conspiracy theory crap is hard to predict.

I thought it was good. It is a shock to you guys all people in the middle east aren’t portrayed as idiotic religious fanatics? It gives good insight in showing how people fall into the fundamentalist trap.

The movie is based on Robert Baer’s book “see no evil” so if you got beef with it’s credibility, take it up with the respected former CIA operative.

And Rob hasn’t even seen the movie

the CIA regularly conducts operations that put surface-to-air missiles in the hands of Iranian terrorists, with no backup plan.

He would put that past the C.I.A.? Iran Contra anyone?

* Blue-eyed Egyptian terrorists who don’t speak Farsi often go to Tehran, without a translator, to pick up said surface-to-air missiles.

You see one person taking the missile. How are we to know how many people were with him? I don’t know where he got Egyptian from, maybe I missed it.

* The FBI regularly investigates whether the CIA has killed Iranian citizens in the course of said operations. Because, you know, they don’t have much else on their plate.

The investigation was brought on by the CIA in an effort to distance themselves from the agent and question his credibility.(his informent, turned torturer was spreading the word that the CIA sent the operative to kill a arab prince)

* The Middle East is full of Oxford and Georgetown-educated Arab princes who want to establish democracy and women’s rights. Because these princes – the epitome of what America wants to see in the region - won’t make deals with American oil companies, the CIA often sets out to kill them.

Lots of royal families send their kids to western universities. Plenty of Saudi Princes have met their demise by “accidents” that were quite suspicious. Who knows what their political beliefs were.

* When a CIA agent played by George Clooney threatens to murder the wife and child of the head of a law firm who opposes him, it’s the smooth menace of a tough guy hero in a tough guy world. When U.S. oil companies make bribes to Kazakistani officials to secure the rights to an oil field, it’s corruption so heinous that the audience is supposed to cringe. No scorn is left over for the Kazakistani officials who actually take the bribes.

That is his opinion. I didn’t see it like that. Clooney’s character is not portrayed as a hero, more like a pawn. The foreign governments portrayed, fictional and real, come off as worse than the US by far. They completely neglect their people for profit and power

Ohh, and Hezzbollah was the real operatives connection in Lebanon and actually did help him in situations. Is it far fetched they would not want a contact that had provided them information killed?

Here is Robert Baer when asked about the movie.

Q: How real would you say the film is in how it portrays these situations?

Baer: I would say that the movie is absolutely authentic. I don’t usually watch movies, and I would never, ever watch a spy movie. But this one – it’s everybody I knew in this world. Oil traders… I spent a lot of time with Islamic fundamentalists… it was totally authentic. It was based in reality.

I traveled with [director Stephen] Gaghan and every voice – he mixed up voices and faces to do this. He spent three or four months getting these people right. We were in Monte Carlo and spent the day with an Arab prince who is just the complete opposite of the Hollywood cliché of what an Arab prince is. He was classically educated at Oxford, a polo rider. Absolutely a beautiful house, not in the least bit garish. He knew history and American literature. He has just read The Corrections.

Roger Ebert wrote:

“As a general principle, I believe films are the wrong medium for fact. Fact belongs in print. Films are about emotions. My notion is that “JFK” is no more, or less, factual than Stone’s “Nixon” or “Gandhi,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Gladiator,” “Amistad,” “Out of Africa,” “My Dog Skip” or any other movie based on “real life.” All we can reasonably ask is that it be skillfully made and seem to approach some kind of emotional truth.”

I agree with that. The movie is fictional. It is definently has the emotional realness ebert talks about. He apparently thinks it does also, considering he gave it 4 stars.

I think to suggest it is a left wing conspiracy picture is wrong.

I’m sorry, are you saying that its fictional...but emotionally real?

Fake but accurate?

C’mon Graeme…