A rally on Jan. 6 in Caracas in support of Nicolas Maduro and wife Cilia Flores after their capture by U.S. forces. Jesus Vargas/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Watching the dramatic events in Venezuela over the past week, with its U.S. invasion to carry off a leader, a powerful reaction abides: "This feels like kind of an insane movie." It turns out to be more than a feeling. The events were the stuff of an insane movie. And that movie was a documentary. Completed and screened in 2024. Men of War, from the veteran doc filmmakers Jen Gatien (Limelight) and Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys), traces a 2020 attempt by a former Army Green Beret named Jordan Goudreau to launch an ill-fated coup against the government of Nicolas Maduro. Related Stories Music Béla Fleck Cancels Concert at Trump's Kennedy Center: "Performing There Has Become Charged and Political" Movies Why Jafar Panahi Will Return to Iran After the 'It Was Just an Accident' Oscar Campaign -- Even as a Prison Sentence Awaits Him With just 60 poorly trained men, Goudreau's effort was quickly and brutally quashed, with eight of his people killed and dozens of others taken into custody. But the movie offers an unusual window into what as of last week became official U.S. policy - suggesting not only how the Trump administration's invasion didn't just come out of nowhere but providing a glimpse, long before it happened, of what a more successful one might actually look like. "What I think is very clear is that none of this happened in a vacuum - this is just the latest chapter of a long history of U.S.-Latin American interventions," Gatien told The Hollywood Reporter this week, adding, "the whole thing, it's surreal." The number of moments in the film that feel eerily prescient include supercuts of President Donald Trump and his advisers way back in his first term saying "all options are on the table" with Venezuela along with rhetoric even back then about a desire to take control of the country's oil supply. Also pointed: Trump's head-of-state-esque welcoming of then-opposition leader Juan Guaido at the 2020 State of the Union as the legitimate leader of Venezuela - a move that, when Guaido turned out to be rejected by his people, may well have contributed to the president's shift from simply supporting grassroots opposition campaigns to intervening militarily himself. Men of War premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024 and was soon picked up by Neon. The company gave it a qualifying release a few months ago (it is now on streaming platforms) but the doc did not make the Oscar short list. Had the timing been different, it well might have. The movie primarily focuses on the failed effort of Goudreau, who tried numerous ways to get a revolution going (and, possibly, collect a $15 million U.S. government bounty), eventually kamikazily self-funding a gambit known as "Operation Gideon" ("Bay of Piglets," to wags) when other partners dropped out. Goudreau does have the help of a longtime Venezuelan general, Cliver Alcala, who was a loyalist to Hugo Chavez but fell out with Chavez successor Maduro back in 2013 and has long been training soldiers in exile for a planned coup. The extent of the actual U.S. involvement in Goudreau's effort is unclear. While the Trump administration denied involvement in what the solider-turned-security consultant was doing, the movie reveals at least one member of then-VP Mike Pence's office, Drew Horn, meeting with him about it. Goudreau also claims he had close contact with Keith Schiller, Trump's bodyguard at the time. But in a way the administration's technical involvement is less relevant than the film's spiritual truth: attempts to overthrow Maduro have been going for a long time, and the events of last weekend are just an example of what they look like when they finally come with maximum money and firepower. "A military option," Gatien says, "has been on the table since at least 2017." Gatien calls her film "an adventure story about self-mythologizing," a comment about Goudreau that easily could apply to the president as well. To complete the art-life give-and-take, the arrest of Maduro could now in turn have an impact on the subjects of the film. Alcala is six years into a two-decade prison sentence in the U.S. for what Gatien says are unfair and trumped-up charges. The general is portrayed as a hero in the film, someone who genuinely has been fighting Maduro but posed a threat to U.S. authorities as a beloved opposition leader who couldn't be controlled, and thus was railroaded as a result. "What Cliver ultimately got charged with was in 2006 while serving as a major general was that he gave two grenades and guns in exchange for releasing [Venezuelan] people who were kidnapped to [then