BOTTOM LINE: Thrilling analyses on the US War on Terror and some great acting, but as a piece of film, barely lives up to its tag of "political thriller".

THE GOOD: Probing in to the debacles and travesties of the US-led War on Terror is gripping, delivered through some top notch acting by the principal actors. Tom Cruise in particular delivers a well delivered, conniving performance as the ambitious Republican Senator Jasper Irving, Meryl Streep is perfect as the journalist not altogether buying Irving's hype, and Robert Redford as the professor trying to urge one of his students to engage. Although the themes are biased towards the anti-war agenda, they do make one think about what has been going on these past six years with American foreign policy and how all of us as a a society have a responsibility to do something about it.

THE BAD: This is a film in the strictest sense, but you could be confused for thinking it was a filmed stage play (except for the combat aerial drop story line). Two of the three main storylines are two actors sitting across a desk talking. Granted, what they talk about is engaging, but couldn't they have figured out a better way to do it? The film was a scant 92 minutes long, but it felt like 3 hours by the end of it. The professor engaging his student storyline doesn't really sit well for the first third of the film (to the point where you ask yourself, why is this in the film?), until it becomes more obviously linked with the other storylines. And the combat storyline, although relevant, feels like an attempt to broaden the film beyond its sit-down, talky scenes which doesn't always sit well given that the film slows down when it returns to the talky scenes.