ANTI-WAR DOC BATTLES TO STAY INTERESTING.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

IT MUST BE an election year.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there they go again. They being liberal documentarians, who flooded movie screens with Bush-bashing films two years ago.

This round's first, ``Why We Fight,'' makes an effort to present a more analytical, historically researched and wider-ranging argument than the '04 editions. Director Eugene Jarecki (``The Trials of Henry Kissinger'') disdains the hysterics and grandstanding of the Michael Moore approach, which for the most part is very admirable. Except Moore's muckraking can be pretty entertaining, and at its best Jarecki's approach is educational.

Which, as noted, is not a bad thing. Jarecki's provocative and sometimes well-argued premise is that, since World War II, America has been on a war-driven imperial trajectory that all presidents and political parties have more or less enabled. The most credible dissenter, of course, was Dwight Eisenhower, who in his 1961 farewell speech famously warned of the military-industrial complex's growing influence.

Jarecki conveniently avoids mentioning the Eisenhower administration's early responsibility for the Vietnam quagmire, although he does quickly note that it had something to do with that blow-back of blow-backs wrong move, installing the shah's regime in Iran. But you get your wisdom where you can find it.

Jarecki interviews a variety of pundits from both ends of the political spectrum, both disgruntled and gung ho military types, various civilians and even a couple of Iraqi citizens about the title question (``Why We Fight,'' by the way, was the name of the propaganda series Frank Capra oversaw during World War II, back when the reasons weren't so morally murky). It is generally concluded that the old M.I.C. - along with conservative think-tank weasels, even more corrupt private-public sector job jumpers and that elephant-in-the-room no one dares justify, petropolitics - are the main culprits for our seemingly endless war footing.

All of this is intelligently presented and makes good sense. However, ``Why We Fight's'' early efforts at bipartisan criticism gradually give way to the usual shots at all things Bush-ite that these movies like to revel in. Deserved as this may be, it quickly gets tedious to watch.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

WHY WE FIGHT - Three stars

(PG-13: violence, language)

Director: Eugene Jarecki.

Running time: 1 hr. 39 min.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Monicas, Santa Monica; South Coast Village 3, Costa Mesa.

In a nutshell: Fairly well researched anti-war documentary tries to give an overview of post-World War II America's transformation into a military-industrial state.