Most critics greet Peter Davis’s documentary as a furious and still relevant account of America in Vietnam. The praise clusters on the method: no narrator, just interviews and archive footage set against each other, with soldiers, villagers and members of the political elite allowed to speak for themselves. Several reviews single out the montage, and the moments where the official case for the war falters under plain questioning. Its influence on later polemical documentaries is noted more than once, usually to the older film’s advantage.
The spread is moderate rather than wide, and the reservations concern rigour. Time Out finds it strong on emotion and weak on political analysis, dividing its subjects too neatly into heroes and villains, while Slant Magazine, otherwise admiring, hears it tip at times into ranting. Nobody disputes its force; the question is whether feeling does the work that argument should.