Backstabbing for Beginners

This film tells the story of a young diplomat who navigates an impossible maze of lies, deceit and death threats.

The diplomat is in a huge dilemma, but he navigates the situation well and ends up way more fortunate than many others in the film. The film is a little slow, and can use tighter editing. Still, it is an interesting film to watch.

The movie backstabbing for beginners is not half as bad as some reviews have it. sure it does not invent the diplomacy thriller anew, but its solid handwork, a good production and the sets were good too. i was a bit irritated by ben kingsleys constant swearing, it would not befit a real high diplomat to use such foul language in public all the time. overall is a watchable film about a young idealistic guy getting assigned to a supposed dream job. but sooner than he imagined, he is caught up in the confusion that any multi billion dollar program and high politics bring along. whom can he believe? is it possible for one man to make a difference in a fight against corruption and greed? see for yourself

Everybody knew this was a corrupt operation - I was in Baghdad in 97 and met some UN observers one told me when she went to the warehouses to check and they were empty, her bosses said to her "shut up and take your money"....there were some highly moral people hi up in the UN though like Dennis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck and Jutta Burghardt, of WFP who like the other two resigned. A very shameful time for the UN and of course the people of Iraq who still suffer to this day. This story needs to be told and the film should be pushed but it wont be...........

Apparently a fictionalized account of Michael Soussan's 2008 memoir of the same name. Theo James stars as Michael Sulliivan, a 24-year-old hired for a high position at the United Nations to help administer the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq after the First Gulf War. He'll be a Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General (Ben Kingsley).

The seemingly naive Michael will soon find himself in the midst of massive corruption, kickbacks, yes-backstabbing, and even murder, with so many billions of dollars at stake. Some of the decision making by him and others had me often shaking my head in disbelief. Moving into the ridiculous, why did Kingsley's character "Pasha" find it necessary to use the "f" word in just about every sentence?

Overall, just not enough dramatic tension here to make this a really engrossing movie. It did have its moments but I can't rate it higher than fair.

It's predictable but interesting enough to see it through. Fails to name names other than the usual sacrificial scapegoat major organisations toss out to the wolves - I.E. press and public. The U.N. is generally considered a useless talking shop, but there's literally billions of pounds sloshing around it's various departments. This film retells what is the tip of the iceberg, add in national foreign aid programmes you understand why certain leaders of poor countries end up with more income than the nations GDP. To paraphrase Churchill, capitalism is awful but it's the best we've got. I do agree with others who mentioned the pointless even annoying expletives used by the Kingsley character. Some points yes it would have been effective, but you end up thinking is he some old school mafia boss or a U.N. under secretary.