"Control Room" takes a hard look at the Al-Jazeera news network, but on a grander scale shows us how important the role of media is in war. Media is a tool or war, and war a tool of media. There's some disturbing stuff here, and also some raw moments of human emotion (war is hell, and covering war can tear out someone's soul). The makers of this film also show how propaganda can be spewed from both sides (Fox News, anyone?) and no war can be fought intelligently without propaganda and the media. In the end, this is probably the closest thing we will get to an unbiased look at the strife in the Middle East. We the viewers feel sympathy for those innocents caught in the cross-fire and empathy for all sides involved on the battle fields and behind the scenes. Powerful, thought-provoking, educational and debate worthy, there need to be more documentaries like this in times like these.
