The War on Democracy

"His interview with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela elicits some details about the President's very humble origins but is most notable for the question Pilger can't get answered. He asks why it is that there is so much poverty in Venezuela when it supplies 15% of the US oil needs? Chavez doesn't have an answer, opting instead for a piece of political speak about not wanting to be rich but to have dignity."

"John Pilger's angry story of how a rapacious US covertly brutalised its Latin American neighbours should be a compelling documentary. And so it often is, despite being marred by a dewy-eyed interview with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, which has moments of almost Hello!-magazine deference. Pilger does not try to be a comedian like the Michael Moore generation; austerely, he recounts the shabby tale of how the postwar United States set about doing what we failed to do with Nasser over Suez: namely, remove inconvenient nationalisers in small countries, using phoney pretexts cooked up with the help of compliant media - what's now known as "spin"."

"Comprehensive though hardly groundbreaking summary of the US's covert and overt interventions in Latin American politics over 50 years."

"Veteran reporter John Pilger describes The War On Democracy as his most positive film to date, a strange thing to say about a documentary that systematically itemises the appalling legacy of US involvement in Latin American affairs. Still, for all the heart-rending personal testimony, chilling archive footage and images of grinding poverty, there is a note of cautious optimism, in a powerful work that suggests the real Land of the Free is to be found in Uncle Sam's back yard."