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I'd say that these events were a strong influence on Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly," except that the book came out in 1977 and Shawn Nelson's tank ride took place 18 years later. The echos of Dick's great book are everywhere, though--the decaying California suburb, pervasive meth use, obsessive, pointless projects, and increasing paranoia. Scott's collage of news reports (including a hilarious on-the-spot sequence where the Talent does little except talk to his cameraman), industrial promo films from the heyday of San Diego's aerospace industry, and revealing interviews with Nelson's friends and family conveys the story with telling economy while placing it into the contexts of the marketing and disposal of a neighborhood and work force, the dependence of a city on the military-industrial complex and the drugs that came with it--methamphetamine having been developed for bomber pilots--and the personal disintegration of a nice, talented, regular guy. Moving and illuminating.

Not top-drawer Ken Loach; the "thriller" elements are well-done, but the warmth and depth Loach brings to his working-class stories has no place here. There's a structural flaw in the script, too--it presents itself as a film about Northern Ireland but then jumps headlong into something equally involving but quite different.

It is, all the same, a well-crafted, atmospheric film that never lacks excitement and raises some substantial issues. More importantly, the entire film is sadly prescient. The opening torture narratives could have been translated from accounts of Abu Ghraib prison. Change a couple of proper names and the scenery, and this would be the best film around on the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Even the second half of the story (no spoiler warning, so I give no details) rings truer and truer as time goes by.

Richly deserves reissue.