Customer Reviews

Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories DVD

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mike Shiley is an adventure traveler and all around life enthusiast that has turned his passion into his life's work and mission - and that is obvious from the moment this film starts.

In Sept 2003 he got a flack jacket, faked a press pass, and against the advise of just about everyone he knew, hopped a plane to Iraq. From the moment he arrives he's in danger. Yet alone with only his camera and the essentials, he prevails and makes friends everywhere he goes.

He spent many months making his way through the country, talking with people, hearing their stories, and filming it all. He spent time with civilians, the Iraqi military and the US Military. Everywhere he went, he got gripping footage, opinions, and a slice of life as people saw it. It was extremely real and very sad. The outcome is AMAZING.

Places and people are shown as they are - it is the first footage I've seen where I could actually begin to comprehend how life has changed since the war began and see what impact its had on the people.

Above all, this film is about people. He did not politicize or show a skewed version of things. Just the facts - and in many ways these facts speak volumes that no mainstream media, military personnel, local Iraqi or political analyst could ever match alone.

I recommend it VERY HIGHLY. Buy it now if you want to see what is really happening in Iraq.

Mike Shiley's film is a rich account made by a corageous US citizen, posing some of the best questions to date about the utility of lethal force and how to achieve the strategic aims in Iraq. This film puts most of US network war reporting to shame, and beats all of it hands down.

This should be required viewing in military academies and colleges.

Below are media and university reviews for Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories.

MEDIA REVIEWS
Those who are strongly for or against the Iraq war won't find their positions unequivocally supported by this film. Which is what makes it worth seeing.
The Portland Tribune

Shiley's film is an incredible guided tour of the Iraq that has yet to be adequately portrayed in mainstream American media. The result is an emotionally complex film that provides perspective on a complex reality that the government has worked to simplify, and the media has done little to clarify.
Willamette Week (Portland, OR)-Movie Review

It's a journey worth taking, but better him than you. He poked into things that journalists and others don't usually stop to examine, and he emerged with a highly personal travelogue that sheds a light on a complex and volatile situation.
The Oregonian Living Section

Shiley deserves credit for going to Iraq twice by himself (both times for a month) and trying to get stories he believes are worth showing.
San Francisco Chronicle

Shiley captures quite a lot of intriguing footage - and makes an important point about just how out of control the situation in Iraq has gotten..."
San Francisco Bay Guardian

What an amazing, powerful film and presentation. In essence, you provided us with a comprehensive behind the scenes tour, no snap-shot news reports, no "approved" footage, no political speak press conferences, just the simple and unfortunate reality that for everyone involved war is hell..
University of Wisconsin

Shiley's footage presented stories of survival amidst extreme strife, the human stories that are not seen for the very most part on the nightly news.
"...well attended and compelling..."
Purdue University

I think the questions you raised last night are part of the conversation we should all be having, and I think it is really admirable that you did the work to help us to have it. Keep it up!
Harvard Alumni Association

I applaud you for undertaking this difficult and creative work. I think this film has a future as an important source of information for citizens who are confused about the US 'project' in Iraq.
Reed College, Portland, OR

Congratulations to Mike for bringing this effort to fruition. It can't have been easy. The places he goes and the way he goes to them are truly extraordinary. Anyone who has been to Iraq knows that the footage he has shot is very true to life in terms of the small village scenes, the way Iraqis communicate very well in english, even when limited by vocabulary, etc...

I'm curious what qualifies the film as "unbiased". It is not. It is biased as all films are -- one way or the other. Certainly there are degrees. For as rare as the footage that he has captured is, his anti-Bush perspective (including trying to coax a Bush-adoring Kurd to reconsider her opinion, or accidentally say something negative through mis-translation) is a small price to pay for those images. We should not pretend he is not biased, though.

The narration is simplistic and heavy-handed, but also gives the piece a fresh feel.

I can tell you from watching projects like this get filmed and troops get interviewed, the most inflammatory moments in the documentary (soldier rants, tank crushing a car, nighttime harrassment fires) are surely the most inflammatory he shot. They are terrible, and embarrassing for our nation, but they are not 'mainstream'. He likely shot hundreds or thousands of hours of video, and chose his cuts selectively. That is certainly his prerogative for the risks he endured.

Overall, this is a valuable addition to the Iraq body of work, but not an unbiased one. This is the most footage that I have found in one place that gives an accurate view of the typical moments in Iraqi life. After watching it, everyone will think more clearly and act more purposefully the next time a war debate comes up, as it will.

BLUF: Very poorly edited, the narrator comes across as arrogant, in horrible taste, and I will never watch another one of his movies.

Overall, I have to say that the video was nothing that I expected. Instead of being a documentary about the Iraqi people, it turned out to be a cheap political movie that likely ruined the careers of several Army soldiers (as Mike Shiley proudly points out in the "Epilogue").

The majority of Mike's feelings are blatantly anti-American, as far as our presence in Iraq is concerned. Even when American soldiers try to lure insurgents out of a village, Mike complains that the gunfire at night is a nuisance for the local people -- without actually interviewing them (something that would have taken no time at all. For all we know, the people there probably want the Americans to get the insurgents out of their town, as they bring in violence, bombings, and kidnappings (as Mike states earlier on in the movie).

In another scene, Mike records dozens of soldiers' messages home to their families. Even if you ignore the assumption that Mike never mailed these messages home to those soldiers' families, the way he portrays the scene shows his lack of compassion for film making. Instead of focusing on each individual message(emphasizing the importance of each soldier and his/her situation), he puts up all the messages on the screen at once, so that many of the messages drown out each other, making it seem like each soldier is in a shouting match with one another to get their messages across.

Horrible "film".

I attending a showing of this movie after which the director talked about the film and answered questions. The whole thing was wonderful. Mike Shiley did an excellent job of remaining unbiased. He's not a journalist in real life, he's an adventure traveler. The guy went into Iraq as a freelancer so he wasn't beholden to, or financed by, anybody. He pointed his camera around the country and talked about what he saw. He was personable and funny in a way that 'real' journalists aren't. Several times during the showing we the audience laughed out loud. I very much enjoyed getting a look at the Iraqi people. They are an attractive bunch, if I may say so. The children are darling little things, the young men and women are total hotties, and the older people look like people I'd like to get to know. We interviewed some soldiers and officers, rode in a tank on an "Intimidate and Harrass" mission, talked to some Kurds, got a glimpse of the easily accessible porn and armament, saw the results of a car bomb that detonated before its intended time. We watched a couple guys dig out land mines planted by Saddam and met some of the victims of the mines. We saw that the major force is most people's lives is simple economics - you need to be able to feed your family. As long as the insurgency pays better, more people will be insurgents. I found this show fascinating and highly recommend it.

My friend and I sat down to watch this on Netflix today and at first I was a little hesitant to watch because it's hard to gauge these days who's out there touting some rhetoric for someone else. I am happy to say that this film beat over my expectations. The films portrayal of some elements of the war, which aren't talked about often in the public sphere was fresh and rare in the world of documentaries today. I found the "adventurous spirit" of the film to be quite rare as well. Not many people know about some of these issue (Dumping of goods, field commanders dealing with seemingly tough problems in innovative and helpful ways, ect). Some have said that this film houses a bias, but I've watched it a couple of times now, and I really don't see it myself. If anything this is one of the least biased films about war in general, and the middle east in detail that I've ever seen.

I really liked how it focused on all the aspects of the war, from the bad things that happen all the way to the good, showing that not only can the "bad guys be bad", but so too can the U.S. soldiers sent to war ( one scene where some soldiers were referring to the Iraqi people as "Hajis" and a young female officer talked proudly about breaking into a mosque and having sex in a combat zone, a big no-no for troops deployed overseas).

I recommend this film to anyone curious about the war in it's early days.

This is one of the best documentaries that I have seen. I'm a strong believer of the saying, "There are three sides to every story, his side, her side, and the truth." Most of us only know what the media shows or tells us about the war and what's going on over there. I'm not at all a political person, but I can't help but wonder about the Iraqi citizens and curious how they really feel about the U.S. I was thinking they're country has got to be pretty bad (even before the war) to want to leave their home and start a new life in a new country. This documentary answers a lot of questions that I've been asking myself. This documentary brings you the facts and the true feelings of not only the Iraqi citizens but also our soldiers.

If you're tired of watching documentaries that are one sided, watch "Inside Iraq- The Untold Stories". The director (Shiley) "sneaks" into Iraq and tells an amazing story based on his perspective as a civilian. Bits and pieces of the film have already been poached onto Youtube & viewed over 1 million times! Forget watching the pirated clips on your computer. It's worth watching the full length film on your plasma screen at home. The images are amazing. Also, if you like this film, another Iraq documentary worth watching is: Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope

The main element this film lacks is any kind of identity. Mr. Shiley presents himself as a neutral observer to the goings on in Iraq. He wants to be the man on the street for the American people because we have been summarily misled by the mainstream American media and dang it he is going to let us know what is really going on.
However he fails across the board. This film is more of an expensive home video. While the video and audio quality is fair there really isn't any other solid use of documentary or film technique employed. His narration is redundant and tedious.
As far as his position is concerned he offers a kind of puppy-teeth nibbling of the American presence in Iraq. He never really wants to chomp at the issue. He repeatedly stabs at America's arrogance and lack of compassion for the country they are liberating as he displays teenage exuberance because they let him shoot the big guns. On the one hand he is trying to show the widespread innocence and sensitivity of the Iraqi people and on the other he makes a mockery of the American soldier by becoming "big-gun-certified" in about an hour. Question to Mr. Shiley "What would have happened if you squared up in those crosshairs, would you have taken a life?" This film was nothing more than an ego trip for this guy as he posed as a documentarian and found little more to do than ruin a couple of army careers and play journalist.