Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry

Going Upriver is a unique, well-researched, and moving profile of John Kerry's emergence in the 1970s as a figurehead for vets who claimed that America's Vietnam policy made no sense. Long after the 2004 presidential election (and despite Kerry's loss), this documentary (based on Douglas Brinkley's book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War) will underscore Kerry's place in history as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Combining interviews (with journalists Joe Klein and Thomas Oliphant, former senator Bob Kerrey, and numerous veterans) together with an impressive body of archival footage, Going Upriver reviews Kerry's Vietnam chapter and the Swift boat horrors he and his men endured. Swift boats were designed to draw enemy fire along 5,000 miles of river, and crews often took 90% casualties, but many maintain that these vessels helped create a "free-fire zone," an area in which attacks on unarmed civilians and villages were encouraged. Kerry, like many veterans, adopted a cynical view of these policies, and believed that the war was being prosecuted to save American prestige long after the 1968 Tet Offensive made clear the U.S. would never win. The film follows, in often stirring detail, Kerry's coordination of 1971's so-called “Winter Soldier” conference, in which vets spoke out about atrocities, and a long sequence covering the VVAW's weeklong protest that same year in Washington, DC, which culminates in 27-year-old Kerry's near-lyrical testimony about the war before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Director George Butler (Pumping Iron) has been photographing and following Kerry since his VVAW days, and the filmmaker's intimate knowledge of the former presidential candidate informs this portrait of a young man consumed by his mission, which--as he saw it--was to save his country from itself. Highly recommended. (T. Keogh)