The Somnambulists

Laudable intentions but a premise which doesn’t hold up at feature length are the defining factors in Richard Jobson’s unquestionably sincere response to the military losses of the Iraq campaign. With only faces visible against an black backdrop, we hear a succession of testimonies from those who’ve served and indeed died, intercut with rather self-conscious monochrome images of people and places left behind. We get the point pretty quickly about the awful human cost of ill-conceived leadership, while script and performances are too patchy to prevent torpor setting in. Shorter and sharper would undoubtedly have been more effective, though a final flourish brings a raw political anger which is invigorating – but a bit too late.