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Sir! No Sir!

(2006)

85 min. Balcony Releasing.

In the documentary Sir! No Sir! filmmaker David Zeiger swiftly deals out the details of the GI anti-war movement of the '60s and '70s. Starting with early objectors Dr. Howard Levy and Green Beret Donald Duncan, Zeiger notes specific protests and protestors (like the Presidio 27, AWOL soldiers whose jailing led to a sit-in protest during an outdoor prisoner roll call). Zeiger also looks at the phenomena of anti-war coffeehouses situated near military bases and frequented by GIs, the GI underground press, the anti-war FTA shows that starred Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland instead of USO stalwart Bob Hope, and the apparent myth of spitting hippies meeting veterans at the airport. Fonda goes on the record, and perhaps not coincidentally, her son Troy Garity narrates. Though Zeiger offers nothing in the way of balancing the protest viewpoint, like the perspective of a proud veteran or former government official, and the facts sometimes seem to come in an audio-visual onslaught, Sir! No Sir! still usefully revisits—during our current unpopular war—the internal conflict of America during the Vietnam War.

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