In theaters

THE FOG OF WAR, directed by Errol Morris; 106 minutes, rated PG-13.

When it comes to war, Robert S. McNamara – former secretary of defense for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a key player in the Cuban missile crisis and one of the most vilified men behind the Vietnam War – wants us to know that our history with war has taught us plenty.

Not that we’ve learned much from it.

Indeed, according to McNamara, we haven’t heeded any of war’s lessons, as our recent wars with Iraq and Afghanistan attest. “It isn’t that we aren’t rational,” he says in the movie. “We are rational. But reason has its limits. You can’t change human nature and it’s our human nature to go to war.”

What McNamara himself has learned about war has been condensed into 11 lessons explored in detail in “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris’ Academy Award-winning documentary that digs deep into McNamara’s troubling yet fascinating life.

The film works as well as it does because it allows the 85-year-old McNamara to do most of the digging, which he does with the sort of chutzpah that would make Donald Rumsfeld pale.

In close-up, we see what age has done to McNamara. But what we also see is how age hasn’t clouded his mind. He is incredibly sharp.

At one point in McNamara’s interview with Morris, Morris tries to corner McNamara with a question about his level of involvement in Vietnam. Without missing a beat, McNamara smoothly sidesteps the question by offering some helpful advice: “Never answer the question you’ve been asked,” he says. “Instead, answer the question you wish you had been asked.”

If that sort of oiliness is what people expect from a man many consider to be a murderer and war criminal, what’s startling about this superb documentary is the weight of regret McNamara now feels for some of his actions.

While he defends his past decisions, some of which literally cost millions of people their lives, he also obviously is haunted by them, such as with his 1945 involvement in the incineration of Tokyo. Then, under the command of Gen. Curtis LeMay, he conspired to drop the bombs that would burn more than 100,000 civilians alive.

Technically, “The Fog of War” is masterful in its delicacy and in its power. It intercuts McNamara’s stories with historic footage of the gleaming tools of war, the great rollout of U.S. machinery and weaponry in foreign lands, the clinical loading of cannons and guns, the fiery hell of earth scorched beyond recognition. Philip Glass’ score punctuates the action with menace as Morris fleshes out the details with hypnotic precision. It can be a beautiful movie to watch.

Perhaps the film’s most noteworthy irony in a film filled with them is that the man who once was partly responsible for thousands of deaths in the Vietnam War also happened to save millions of lives by pioneering the use of safety belts in the early ’60s, when he briefly was president of Ford Motor Co.

Morris’ great accomplishment in “The Fog of War” is that he creates a mood in which McNamara felt free to talk openly and candidly over the course of their 23 one-hour interviews, the highlights of which are condensed here.

Occasionally, McNamara hangs himself by saying too much or by being so overcome by emotions, his face folds into tears. But he is nevertheless allowed to state his side of the story. In doing so, he can be surprisingly moving and charming, and there seems to be a concerted effort to make sense of the times through the clear eye of hindsight, which he has embraced.

Why did McNamara agree to make this movie when he knew that anything he said would be controversial and likely require qualifications? At the end of his life, with so much having been said and written about him, he knew the film would allow him to expand on his 1995 book, “In Retrospect,” which much of this movie repeats, by going on record with his own words.

“I’m very proud of my accomplishments,” he says at the end of the movie. “And I’m very sorry that in the process of accomplishing things, I made errors.

“We all make mistakes,” he says. “We always make mistakes. I don’t know any military commander who is honest who would say he hasn’t made a mistake. There’s a wonderful phrase, ‘the fog of war.’ What the fog of war means is that war is so complex, it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all of the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate and we kill people unnecessarily.”

How that relates to the here and now is undeniable in its potency and importance.

Not surprisingly, the movie is not playing in the Bangor market, but it does start its run Friday, March 19, at Waterville’s Railroad Square. This is one movie that’s well worth the trip. Don’t miss your chance to see it.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

American Splendor ? A-

Anything Else ? B+

Bad Boys II ? C-

Bruce Almighty ? B+

Cold Creek Manor ? D

Duplex ? B

The Fighting Temptations ? C

Finding Nemo ? B+

Freaky Friday ? A-

Good Boy! ? C+

How to Deal ? C-

House of the Dead ? D

The In-Laws ? C

Intolerable Cruelty ? B-

The Italian Job ? A-

Le Divorce ? C-

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ? A-

Lost in Translation ? A

Looney Tunes: Back in Action ? B-

Man on the Train ? A-

Matchstick Men ? A-

The Matrix Reloaded ? A-

The Missing ? B+

Mona Lisa Smile ? B-

My Boss’s Daughter ? BOMB

Nowhere in Africa ? A

Once Upon a Time in Mexico ? B-

Open Range ? B+

Out of Time ? B

The Order ? D

Pieces of April ? B

Pirates of the Caribbean ? A-

Radio ? C

Runaway Jury ? B

Schindler’s List: 10th Anniversary ? A+

School of Rock ? B+

Secondhand Lions ? C+

The Secret Lives of Dentists ? B+

Swimming Pool ? B+

Sylvia ? B-

Thirteen ? B+

28 Days Later ? B+

Under the Tuscan Sun ? B+

Underworld ? D

Winged Migration ? A