Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

First the negatives. The narrator (Jeremy Scahill) has a really flat voice throughout the film--typical for documentaries, but I prefer some emotion and inflections--really no big deal. Second, as expected, the book was much, much more through with a lot more information. The film should be viewed as a complement to the book, not a substitute. Third, I personally do not find the "lead character" that the United States is attempting to assassinate by drone to be very sympathetic. Not for a second do I believe that he was a peace-loving Islamic cleric radicalized and turned into a terrorist by the evil U.S. Instead, I think that for unknown psycho-social reasons being a demagogue came easy to him. The positives of this documentary, however, far outweigh any negatives. It is really excellent and interesting, just like the book. Even for someone who has decent familiarity with some of the questionable things going on in U.S. foreign policy, there will certainly be many new facts here. No recent presidential administration comes off good. That any of this was going on under George Bush shouldn't surprise anyone, but Obama comes off much worse considering that he has escalated questionable policies and is a sophisticated, well-educated, constitutional law professor. How many Nobel Peace Prize Winners have Kill Lists? The precedents we are setting are worrying, and, in the long term, today's advanced weaponry is likely to become much more accessible and we may wind up reaping what we have sown.

I watched Dirty Wars (2013, directed by Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill) last night and thought, "We know its a dirty war, so what's the point of the film?" This might sound flippant in the context of errant killings carried out by our own government, but that's not the context that I'm referring to. I'm referring to the context of the film's narrative which looks at the gray lines of a global war on terror. Unfortunately these areas are no longer gray by the time the film is released. Thanks to brave journalists such as the film's director Jeremy Scahill, these issues have come to the attention of the public. The only gray area that remains is how an ambiguous global war on terror will evolve, or perhaps collapse. This is an interesting question, and perhaps one that deserves more attention in the film. Another question that deserves more attention is, "Who is Jeremy Scahill?" He traveled in the most dangerous red zones of Afghanistan to seek the truth on "dirty" night raids and drone strikes carried out by NATO and U.S. led forces. I wanted to delve deeper into Scahill's state of mind. This happens at times throughout the film, but not enough. In this one, I appreciate the work Scahill has done as an investigative journalist. The film read fine as a news story, but as a documentary film Dirty Wars lacks purpose and emotional connection.

Testimony after testimony, document after document, who now in the world still believes in this once great nation.Jeremy Scahill, Bill Maher, Michael Moore, and every American citizen who knows the truth about their government, should be ashamed of themselves. They have the power to lead their country in the next revolution, yet they sit on their asses making movies and comedy. Somebody, sometime is going to take down the powers that be in the US, and when that happens, I'm joining.This is obviously a movie that makes you feel something, or confirms the feelings you already have, towards this world terrorizing band of merchants

I loved this documentary for the most part but felt the narrator was mellow-dramatic at times. i also found the approach of storytelling quite tedious and a little self-indulgent. I understand the narrator needed to tell the story in this way as he was the journalist who began the investigation over a decade ago, but I felt at times it lacked creativity. My biggest problem with this documentary was it's ending. The story just seemed to go nowhere; or 'fell off a cliff" as my documentary tutor would say. The journalist had copious amounts of video evidence to which he done nothing about other than put it in his film. Why did he not bring it to the Whitehouse and demand comment and put the Generals of JSOC under pressure?The line 'I realize now this story has no ending" for the fact the war on terror will always be in operation is a cop out on the producers part, it's a lazy way of saying I have worked so long on this film which has no ending but I want to get it out into the public domain. I feel in the end he was blinded by the excitement to release it rather than wait another 2 years to find a strong conclusion.Apart from the above it is still an excellent documentary which is thoroughly enjoyable and well deserves its nomination for the Oscars, however I do not think it will win for its storytelling element over its political message.