Redacted (2007)

Brian De Palma's film "Redacted", made in the form of documentary film, which gives more action and tension of true events in Iraq. We talk about the crimes covered up the U.S. military in Iraq, in peacetime 2006 g. The rape of 15-year-old girl and killing her family. Very startling film, with staff showing the true and original footage of the massacre in Iraq. I thought it was one of the many war movies, many of a hundred I watched. But, it pleasantly surprised me.

I'm not going to give a massive in depth review of the film as I don't have the words or ability to do so. However, I can say that I did enjoy it as a film, very powerful and moving.One thing that I MUST recommend that people do though, especially everyone saying that 'It's not an accurate representation of the military', or 'It's just one sided gibberish' or criticisms of such ilk is to read 'Black Hearts' by Jim Frederick. Basically, the film is a dramatised version of this book, which gives a very frank and honest (in my opinion anyway) breakdown and description of the situation that these soldiers were facing, and had faced. I say fair play to the film for just dumping the viewer in the middle of the story. Why should there be a massive lengthy background detailing each and every character's history? If anything, something like that is just insulting the viewer's intelligence in such matters. The film is not saying that 'Waa, army people are bad', think about the situation for a minute.

It has admittedly been awhile since I viewed 'Redacted,' and having served in the military I obviously find it difficult to objectively review this movie (no, it's not a film). I will attempt to be objective and judge the film on its content rather than its political stance.It is based on a horrific real life incident, where American soldiers raped a young girl and murdered her entire family. It was a disgraceful incident, and although I generally consider the death penalty to be barbaric, in the case of the men involved it would be a fitting punishment.Redacted depicts the soldiers as standard Vietnam era military archetypes: the college educated white guy, the wisecracking minority, and the evil rednecks (nope, DePalma the writer isn't above resorting to that cliché).I will issue DePalma a modicum of credit for trying to show how the characters built up to the moment where they could be capable of killing innocent civilians. The soldiers never know which Iraqis are insurgents and which ones are innocent, which leads to a tragic shooting at a checkpoint. An IED kills a Master Sergeant who was accompanying them on a patrol for some reason, and then they find out that their deployment to Iraq has been extended. They endure long hours in the heat, bored out of their minds, and not knowing where the next attack might come from. The two aforementioned cliché rednecks actually commit the rape and murders, while another soldier films them (to help him get into film school, natch) and a fourth looks on helplessly. The insurgents (whose actions in the film are always in response to American atrocities, and who never target civilians) kidnap a soldier from a checkpoint and execute him as retribution. The main problem with this film, aside from the very thin characters, is the acting. This film was made on a small budget and was cast with unknown actors. I'm not pinning the film's shortcomings on them when I say that the performances are uniformly poor. The mixed media style of the narrative is clumsy and poorly put together, and to be honest the last half hour of the film was so poorly made that it was nearly unwatchable. There is a point when the actions of the people on screen literally stop making sense, such as one of them wearing a REALLY bizarre hat for no reason whatsoever. It almost seemed like DePalma himself stopped caring or was using drugs. I can't overstate the fact that I'm not trying to find fault solely because I didn't agree with DePalma's world view; he's entitled to his beliefs. But the film making here was stunningly, disastrously inept. And this was from the man who made 'The Untouchables'? Then again, he turned James Ellroy's most compelling novel into a terrible waste of film, so that should tell you something.As in nearly all Iraq war films, Iraqis are depicted as faceless victims or masked terrorists. No greater depth is afforded to them. This film is a polemic, designed to elicit a particular emotional response from viewers, and has no insight into the situation on the ground. The civil war between Shiite militias and Sunni fighters, the corrupt and unpopular government, the rampant unemployment, the influence of Iran and Syria, the remnants of the Hussein regime supporters and Ba'ath party, and the lack of social infrastructure receive no mention. All you need to know is that Americans are rapists and killers, and once they leave all of the problems that were created when the British created Iraq and forced three different races of people (Arabs, Persians, and Kurds) to live together will be magically solved.If you're from Europe, and you hate Americans and can't understand why they don't bow to supposedly superior education and presumed moral superiority, then you will enjoy this film. It caters to you, it won't challenge you, and it serves to reinforce what you already believe. It doesn't offer insight, it doesn't pose questions, and it doesn't humanize people on either side of the conflict. Instead, it gives you one dimensional stereotypes that you can easily vilify.Brian DePalma has a right to his beliefs, and believe it or not I can respect someone who is passionate enough about a belief to speak out, but this is supremely lazy film making across the board. For those of you who were insulted by the film, know that DePalma desperately tried to get hired to direct the ultra low budget 'Paranormal Activity 2' and was passed over. What does that tell you?

The film is simple and direct and does not necessitate a long story to tell the "plot" or the "drama". In Iraq the Americans are doing a bad job. In that case, a small squadron is pacifying a small zone. One day two or three of them get berserk and they invade a house, arrest one man, and then later, at night, they will come back to rape a fifteen year old girl and they will kill everyone, mother, father, grandfather and smaller sister. It will come out, especially after the insurgents capture one man of this small unit and plainly slaughter him with a knife and behead him. The film shows how no justice will come out of that story and even the GI who will reveal the story on the Internet will become the real culprit for the investigating unit. He will end up guilty in his mind forever after he is released from his military position. He will always considers himself as the one who saw one girl being raped, killed and then burnt while her whole family was being assassinated and he did nothing because one of the killers gave him the order to get out and stand watch in the street and he obeyed. There is no clean war. War is always dirty, but there are some wars where we can find some justification for that dirt, be it patriotic or defensive, or whatever. In this case there is no justification though we could give volumes of explanations. It would amount to nothing but that: take young males away from their natural environment, put them in a hostile and completely different environment, lock them up in cramped housing conditions forcing the most extreme promiscuity onto them and among them, without any kind of sexual satisfaction possible in a country like Iraq where prostitution could not even be thought of, and either they accept to satisfy their hunger within their promiscuity, one way or another often leading to inner conflicts and fights, or by forcing their sexual needs onto unwilling women outside, young if possible of course. Just sending human beings in such conditions is a crime against humanity and war should be banned. But the worst part of it is that this war was entirely decided against the better judgment of the whole world and exclusively justified with lies hammered onto us by a bunch a liars. You can imagine then how horrifying the vision of the last still images of collateral victims can be.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID