Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 06/24/2003
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD5.1/DDS2.0
Run Time: 108 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: HBO Home Video
As America geared itself for another possible armed conflict in Iraq, the
HBO cable service offered a dramatization of events surrounding the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Originally telecast on December 8, 2002,
Live From Baghdad recounted the efforts by the
CNN network to be first on the scene when hostilities broke out in the Gulf in late 1990. Inaugurating round-the-clock coverage of the warfare with the invasion of Kuwait, dauntless
CNN producers
Robert Wiener (
Michael Keaton) and
Ingrid Formanek (
Helena Bonham Carter), aided and abetted by on-the-scene reporters
Bernard Shaw (
Robert Wisdom),
Peter Arnett (
Bruce McGill), and
John Holliman (
John Carroll Lynch), among many others, represented the only American news service on the scene during the first night of bombing on January 16, 1991. Not only does
Live From Baghdad celebrate the heroism (and meticulous fairness) of the
CNN crew, but it also vividly demonstrates how a tiny but tenacious basic cable channel managed to out-scoop the Big Three networks, thereby becoming one of the most powerful and influential journalistic forces in the world.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
;)
