Categories Media Print Media The Situation

Beyond The Multiplex, Salon, February 1, 2007

Beyond the Multiplex

by Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com, February 1, 2007

A compelling Iraq war thriller that will entertain and upset you.

“There’s no truth, you know,” a CIA official tells an idealistic young colleague in “The Situation,” the compelling new Iraq war thriller from veteran indie director Philip Haas. “There are no bad guys and there are no good guys. It’s not gray, either … There’s no truth! It’s lost in the fourth dimension of time.”

Those lines, and the extraordinary monologue by Dan Murphy (played by Damian Lewis) from which they come, express the ambiguity at the heart of “The Situation,” an uneven but impressively ambitious picture that depicts the contemporary Iraq conflict as an existential and moral heart of darkness. Made rapidly and on the cheap (in Morocco), and written by Wendell Steavenson, a journalist who has reported from Iraq, “The Situation” claims the prize of being the first American narrative feature to address the war directly. (Perhaps 20 percent of Irwin Winkler’s “Home of the Brave” is set in Iraq, but that film is principally about soldiers’ difficulties on coming home.) Continue reading Beyond The Multiplex, Salon, February 1, 2007

Categories Media Print Media The Situation

Situation No Win, Village Voice, January 30, 2007

Situation No Win

by J. Hoberman, Village Voice, January 30, 2007

Dealing head-on with Bush’s War, Samarra-set political thriller dissects Iraqi unrest and nails the neocons

The Situation, Philip Haas’s deftly paced, well-written, and brilliantly infuriating Iraq War thriller is not only the strongest of recent geopolitical hotspot flicks but one that has been designed for maximal agitation. Based on a script by the Anglo-American journalist Wendell Steavenson, this gutsy attempt to dramatize the way Iraqis live now is an incitement to rage and despair—the most vivid critique of Bush’s War yet put on screen. Continue reading Situation No Win, Village Voice, January 30, 2007