Live from Baghdad | |
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Directed by | Mick Jackson |
Produced by | George W. Perkins |
Screenplay by | Robert Wiener Richard Chapman John Patrick Shanley Timothy J. Sexton |
Based on |
Live from Baghdad by Robert Wiener |
Starring |
Michael Keaton Helena Bonham Carter Lili Taylor Bruce McGill Michael Murphy Paul Guilfoyle Kurt Fuller |
Music by | Steve Jablonsky |
Edited by | Joe Hutshing |
Distributed by | HBO |
Release date
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Running time
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108 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Live from Baghdad is a television movie produced in 2002 by HBO. It was directed by Mick Jackson and written by Robert Wiener based on Wiener's book of the same title. The movie was released during the prelude stage of the Iraq War.
Michael Keaton stars as CNN on-location producer Robert Wiener in Baghdad, Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The movie focuses on the news media's (primarily CNN's) coverage of the war. Fundamentally an action–drama, the characters grapple with the ethics and implications of 24-hour journalism in the days leading up to and during the United States-led bombing of Baghdad.
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces and tanks roll into Kuwait City, as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait begins. In Atlanta, CNN picks Robert Wiener (Michael Keaton) and his crew to go to Baghdad and cover the invasion. At Rome International Airport, Wiener meets his colleague and producer Ingrid Formanek (Helena Bonham Carter). Wiener and his crew arrive in Baghdad on August 23, and stay at the Al-Rasheed Hotel.
As they settle in their hotel rooms, they notice that they are being monitored. The crew report their first story on a young British boy held as a hostage by Saddam Hussein (Jerry Haleva). As they continue to report stories, they get pressured by the Iraqi government. Wiener later meets the Iraqi Minister of Information Naji Al Hadithi (David Suchet), and requests pieces of equipment and an interview with Hussein. As the movie goes on, Wiener and Al Hadithi become friends.