What was the point?

[deleted]

as art, it wasn't.

it doesn't make the view personal to just me, a lot of other people agree it was a below average film, not deep, not groundbreaking, definitely not art

Do any of you actually think this was a good or great film, or a great work of art? You felt good or got something positive from this film, you were moved in any way? Really?

I'm not the least embarrassed. And I know myself pretty well after my 60 yrs on this planet. My comprehension is just fine and I comprehend that at some point you're going to fall off that high horse.
Peace out.

Not really. Of all the examples I cited, those people never see the end that was already set in motion. FBI didn't see the mess, and those that sold Iraq war didn't see the mess. There is the reason the very first opening shot is the biker going across the land. We know his fate was already in waiting. Then, one minor accident ( which was a favor, not a decision based on greed ), snowball to a disaster.

The film rook effort to remove all elements of greed in the counselor's decision, and made sure the spark that spun things out of control was as irrelevant as possible. It also made effort to remove all fluid narrative to stay focus on motif. In that, it's extremely innovative filmmaking.

It is just not a good "crime-drama-narrative" but it never was to begin with. That's the same as saying a minimalist architecture is not a good house because it lacks privacy, separation of spaces, etc, etc, basically, saying it lacks stuff that was removed by design, stuff removed to amplify what's more important.

It doesn't matter why U.S. got involved occupying Iraq, or if it was justified. And I'll still debate you on that, but that was not my point. You don't go in expecting people there will react like people in U.S. do, feeling liberated and thankful that a dictator was removed, and looking up to U.S. troops as soldiers who freed them. That is naive.

Point was, U.S. entered expecting one thing, but once involved, it becomes something else altogether that is mess to deal with. Whether that mess is worth it is besides the point. And I'll still debate you on that.

Okay, so let's go off-tagent.

Al-Qaeda hated Saddam's guts. In Al-Qaeda's eyes, it's dictator like Saddam catering to U.S.'s demand at the expense muslim people, that gave U.S. power. Of course, that's nonsense, but that's not the point.

The real parallel for the counselor in the film are not those who recognized the need to remove Saddam from power as a necessary precondition for regional reform and (Iraqi) national recovery.

I am continually amazed by the ideological blindness surrounding the issue of Iraq.

The removal of Saddam was "morally necessary," huh? Is that how you guys are ineffectually "justifying" the mess we're in?

So, we couldn't "safely remove" the troops in Saudi because of Saddam? He was a broken reed, internationally, after his defeat in the Gulf War. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had nothing to fear from him. However, since you can't claim that Saddam had anything to do with the 2001 attacks, you've got to find some other reason to blame him. Our presence there couldn't be simply due to the US's overweening pride and its desire to have bases in the region, could it?

The plain arrogance of declaring that we were going into the Middle East to "reconstruct a more representative, democratic, pro-Western government," as if we have the right to remake the world in our image, is appalling. What we created thru our selfish, short-sighted meddling, is chaos, pure and simple. ISIS was founded in the 1990s, but it got nowhere til we destabilized the entire region and gave it the freedom to pursue its goals. Now, vast portions of the population are being slaughtered or driven from their homes to escape the fury we unleashed in our hubris. Of course, what country is least willing to take in the refugees from the destruction we caused? The country which bears the major responsibility for the ruin of their lives, the US.

China's government is horribly repressive, but we do deals with them and have no intention to fulfill some so-called "moral" obligation to "reconstruct a more representative, democratic, pro-Western government" there. North Korea makes China look like a model society, but we aren't self-righteously champing at the bit to overthrow their government. Why? Because we're afraid of them, afraid that they might beat us. Instead, our glorious leaders decided, like any bully, to pick on a small country we'd already beaten once, so we could pound our chests with pride over American superiority, and morons could write posts about how we were merely performing our moral duty.

If you really believe that, then I feel very sorry for you.

Good to hear a more nuanced take on Iraq. I too agree that the intentions were not nearly as malicious as the left insist, although the utter stupidity of failing to plan for the aftermath was its own kind of evil. Boneheaded ignorance that came with a price that is still being paid in innocent blood.

When you say 'those who could profit from his oil', who are you referring to? Who in the West gained from Saddam controlling the oil?

The fact that the movie didn't progress in a typical way to that of a standard thriller, is what made it great. It allowed us to actually think about what is going on, and made us use our imagination. It's all clear what is going on, as long as you just pay attention. Sounds like you were just after a Bruce Willis kinda movie involving kicking the cartel's ass.

The point of that scene was to show where the shipment ended up, and with the body in a barrel to show the kinds of things the cartel do on a daily basis. They like to have fun with serious things like death, because they don't see it as serious. It's just a joke to them.