Written, produced and directed by first-time documentarian Charles Ferguson, a political scientist with a doctorate from MIT and experience at the Brookings Institution, "No End in Sight" packs the enraging cumulative punch of a "J'accuse," but its tone could hardly be more sober. As lucid as it is level-headed, the film has a clear thematic focus -- what went wrong in Iraq -- and it identifies the catastrophic turning points with steely precision and a wealth of context. The result, narrated in a grave monotone by Campbell Scott, is a catalog of horrors so absurd and relentless it verges on farce, or Greek tragedy.

-- LA Times Review


Remember the scene in "A Clockwork Orange" where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see "No End in Sight," the story of how we were led into that war, and more than 3,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of other lives were destroyed....

Although Bush and the war continue to sink in the polls, I know from some readers that they still support both. That is their right. And if they are so sure they are right, let more young men and women die or be maimed. I doubt if they will be willing to see this film, which further documents an administration playing its private war games. No, I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals.

-- Roger Ebert, Four Stars for "No End in Sight"


That said, prepare to be riveted: No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson's first film, is without question the most important movie you are likely to see this year. It is not a film that simply massages your pre-existing attitudes about the war in Iraq. Rather it is a work that tells you things you almost certainly did not know about that disaster or things that have been lost to sight as chaos, anarchy and our feelings of helplessness have grown over the years since the invasion of 2003. Specifically, what it says is that the war was lost by the "coalition" in its first month � when U.S. forces failed to protect the Iraqi museum and library, among 20 other invaluable cultural, social and political sites.

"Now we have no national heritage," a curator, standing in the ruins of his institution, says. This is bad enough, but the failure had dire and immediate political consequences as well. Televised images of the looters sent a message to the Iraqis that absent the imposition of martial law (which the U.S. had a right to declare under the Geneva Conventions) ordinary citizens had nowhere to turn for protection of their lives and property. Except to the Muslim militias. Here was a faith-based initiative with a new and deadly face. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Donald ("I don't do quagmires") Rumsfeld made his little jokes: who knew there were so many vases available for purloining in Iraq?

-- Time Magazine