TRY TO MAKE THE BEST OF CONFUSING 'SITUATION'.

Byline: Bob Strauss

Film Critic

"The Situation" is named after what everybody calls the thing they always talk about in Iraq.

Which is, of course, the war. Or the civil war. Or the occupation. Or whatever that mess is. No one seems to really know. Neither does this movie.

And that's about the best thing that can be said for this confused effort, directed by never-too-exciting indie filmmaker Philip Haas ("Angels & Insects," "The Music of Chance") and written by an actual Mideast reporter, Wendell Steavenson. It's her first screenplay, and it shows; while not the movie's only problem, the script is a big one, made up as it is primarily of dialogue that isn't just expository, but clunkily explanatory.

Which, for all of its numbing detail, doesn't do much to clarify what's going on because, as mentioned, the situation is maddeningly complicated. That makes the movie realistic, at least. Tedious, but realistic.

Set a couple of years ago when things weren't even as messy as they are now, "Situation" charts the efforts of American journalist Anna Molyneux (Connie Nielsen) to get to the bottom of the Army-involved drowning of a teenager in the volatile city of Samarra. This is complicated by military obfuscation, a power struggle between the local sheik-turned-mayor and a resistance leader, and the fact that anyone seen talking to an American is likely to get shot.

The main complication, though, is back in Baghdad, where Anna is having an affair with an alternately cynical, idealistic and pragmatic U.S. information officer played by British actor Damian Lewis (cable's "Band of Brothers," the little-seen but impressive "Keane"). She's also drawn to a Christian Iraqi news photographer (Mido Hamada), and spends a lot of time tremulously puttering between his danger-filled world and the Oz-like dream world of the safer Green Zone.

She worries that she's somehow responsible for bad things that happen to Iraqis whom she knows. Her American boyfriend wants to win hearts and minds, though at one point admits he hasn't a clue how. The photog, wisely, just wants to get out of the country, preferably to a place where there's snow.

This leads to not much happening, except the general realization that everything's getting worse. That includes the explanatory dialogue.

To its credit, "Situation" presents a variety of different Iraqi characters believably and, even when they behave villainously, with a good deal of understanding and respect. Their dire, life-and-death issues aren't upstaged by the Westerners' murkier moral dilemmas (well, not too much, anyway). This does little to make the film more dramatically compelling, though. And when some military action finally gets called for, it's shot rather ineptly despite Haas' theoretically sound notion to film it all with handheld cameras.

Made in Morocco, "The Situation," like the earlier blink-and-you-missed-it "Home of the Brave," is more interested in being among the first Iraq war movies than being a well thought-out one.

Admittedly, the situation makes rational thought pretty difficult. But someday, sooner than later, the visceral madness of the whole sorry misadventure is sure to find its powerful way to the screen.

THE SITUATION - Two stars

(Not rated: violence, sex, language)

Starring: Connie Nielsen, Damian Lewis, Mido Hamada.

Director: Philip Haas.

Running time: 1 hr. 46 min.

In a nutshell: Turgid, talky tale of a reporter torn between a U.S. intelligence officer, a local photographer and trying to, well, report on the impossible situation in Iraq.