Product Details

• Actors: Patrick Carroll, Rob Devaney, Izzy Diaz, Ty Jones, Anas Wellman
• Directors: Brian De Palma
• Writers: Brian De Palma
• Producers: Christopher Matson, Eric Schwab, Gretchen McGowan, Jason Kliot, Jennifer Weiss
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Magnolia
• DVD Release Date: February 19, 2008
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000YDOOSM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,478 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Redacted" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Brian De Palma’s ferocious Redacted is one of a number of cinematic protests against the Iraq War and the withholding of information and images about the war from the U.S. public. But it is also shares De Palma’s perennial interest in the relationship between film and violence, a relationship that has changed significantly in the real world because of the Internet, cable news, and the ubiquity of camcorders on the ground in Iraq. In a world more intent than ever on watching everything, De Palma has fashioned Redacted to look like a daisy chain of found footage taken from disparate sources. These include an American soldier’s video journal (which, not insignificantly, is also supposed to be that soldier’s audition piece for film school), a French documentary, a security camera at the edge of an army compound, and streaming video online from insurgents and military families alike. Taken together, Redacted recreates the kind of Iraq War scenes we’ve heard about for years: soldiers kidnapped or felled by booby traps, pregnant women and children shot by American guards at military checkpoints because Iraqi drivers misunderstand orders, etc. With mood and setting firmly established, Redacted then tells the story of an atrocity ripped from headlines in 2006: the rape and murder of an Iraqi teen, as well as the murder of her family, by American soldiers who then proceed to cover up their crime. Meanwhile, other soldiers, well-meaning witnesses to what happened, implode with doubt and uncertainty about what to do. In a way, Redacted is really about the paralysis of ordinary Americans confronted by the horror of our collective misjudgment about Iraq. It's a work of fiction using actors, meaning that De Palma employs a verisimilitude which sometimes doesn’t sit well with anyone who has seen a lot of Iraq War documentaries featuring real troops and real Iraqis. But De Palma is trying to do something very difficult, i.e., make the case that in war, truth really is the first casualty. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

A fictional story inspired by true events, Redacted is a feature film centered around a small group of American soldiers stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Redacted alternates points of view between these soldiers, the media and the local Iraqi people, illuminating how each group is deeply affected by the current conflict and their encounters with each other.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Good September 12, 2012

By Major Pain

Format:Amazon Instant Video|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have nothing against anti-war films. However this was just bad in general,bad acting,bad character development, Dis-jointed editing and unrealistic portrayal of journalists and military personnel. I would not recommend this for even the most the avid anti-Iraq war activist. The Iraq war sucked but so did this movie.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars weak June 3, 2013

By M. Purdue

Format:Amazon Instant Video

Insulting portrayal of how soldiers deal with internal struggles and the horrible realities of war. Seems a thinly veiled attempt to make a political statement about the war. American soldiers portrayed as deeply disturbed with no redeeming values. I was in Iraq and couldn't have gotten any closer to the Iraqi people, real potential missed in movie.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Too bad I can't give it a zero! May 31, 2013

By domingo

Format:Amazon Instant Video

This film is one of the most inaccurate films I have ever seen. I was deployed in Iraq when that war crime happened, and I can tell you that the friends I had in B company, every single one of them felt ashamed when they discovered it was their own soldiers. This film is total BS, and frankly I believe Brian De Palma owes an apology to every soldier, and family member of a service member out there. And, lets not forget the rest of the world for this misleading pornography. To put it simply, this movie sucked. Go watch Restrepo, read Black Hearts. Don't watch this film!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars REMAINS essential viewing: NO MORE WAR! November 16, 2007

By C. Scanlon VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Websearch these facts culled from recent news reports. Inability to accept them demonstrates how much your personal paradigms have been recently redacted, as revealed by this near-documentary film. Do not deny the truth, but act on it.

One of every four homeless in America is a vet.

Desertion is a record high; higher than in a generation, five thousand each year. The suicide rate among vets is at an all time high. Often we read the phrase, "Not since Vietnam . . ."

Casualties are at an all time high, and remain undercounted. Body armour keeps people alive without limbs and vision, etc. And we still refuse to count the civilian collateral damage now in seven figures by reliable sources, the same women, peasants and children we claim to liberate, now under two Bush invasions of this impoverished yet petroleum rich land. The grave is no liberation.

Our ally Turkey invades our allies the Kurds in Iraq, and like papa Bush we desert our Kurdish allies now again.

And Halliburton's Cheney and company want no strings attached funding world without end, now passing two TRILLION dollars, while our own children go without health care, and don't ge tme started on our domestic woes and injustices and suffering and political-economic immorality.

In his recent Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis: el Sacramento de la Caridad: una Exhortacion Apostolica Postsinodal, Our Holy Father, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI prophetically cries how our consciences must cry out to see that a small part of what we spend on war could ease the hunger of the world's vast majority, who are desperately poor....

See this movie and wonder what have we become in eight short years.

This movie opens today, and will come out in DVD in February, when the current round of limitless funding finally runs out. Stop the funding; stop the war. War no more.

This film has already won awards and acccolades in New York, Telluride, Venice and Toronto, but O'Reilly would keep you from seeing it. Go see it, now, while still allowed.

See as well No End in Sight, Casualties of War (Unrated Extended Cut), Embedded Live and The Ground Truth, Sicko (Special Edition), Fahrenheit 9/11, etc., and learn the truth, not the lies. War is wrong, and this one above all, is wrong from beginning until its (please make it soon) end. See this film. What have we become? What are we to be?

Richard Corliss in the mainstream Time magazine calls this film "a cry of national shame."

The mainstream New York magazine's Edelstein hopes "that it's furiously debated. De Palma makes me proud to be an American."

REdacted shows us how we have been lied to in an age of instant and ubiquitous media. This film shows how the truth is controlled and altered to fit the corporate political desires. How did we go to war on manufactured "intelligence reports?" How do we stay at war which serves absolutely no one but corporate interests?

This war: what's it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again.

Like Rashomon and its polyphonic internal editing by each narrator in that great film, this movie reveals to us the viewpoints of US soldiers at an Iraqi checkpoint, and the viewpoints of the innocent Iraqi people trapped in their hell of our making, and how our media makes that truth domestically permitted and marketable under our tightly controlled national press.

Bring the war home. Now. Jesus says Love thy enemy, not kill them for their oil. For Christmas let us hear once more the first greeting of the celestial choirs to the poor shepherds freezing on hillsides in the Middle East: Peace on Earth. Let us hear no more bombs, and study war no more.

See this film. O'Reilly won't let you, which is but one small reason to.

November 21. The headline from the internationally respected news service Reuters reports the holding hostage of a Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press photographer captured by the US military occupation forces in Iraq. The AP wants its photographer back, after his kidnapping and continued imprisonment without any legal niceties since April 2006. Lacking due process this is kidnapping and hostage taking to prevent the news services from investigating and reporting the news, exactly the thesis of this present near documentary movie, which shows how the military controls our media in Iraq, including by the threat of kidnapping and endless imprisonment outside the law.

The article reports that Reuter's own journalists have been held hostage by the US military in Iraq and released months later with no charges brought against them. This AP photographer has been held now for over a year and a half, a clear warning to all journalists working in Iraq.

This film is too real. You can't handle the truth. Watch it with your eyes open. Read more ›

20 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars DePalma's Awesome Anti-War Statement... November 27, 2009

By R. A. Bean

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you have read any of my other reviews, you'll see that I am a very huge fan of Brian DePalma's. I love every film he has ever made! But, don't let that distract from my opinion of this film. It's a film like this that makes me favor his work so much. Yes, there are some very scathing reviews of this film on here (and all over the web), but there are some really glowing one's as well; and, rightly so!
First off, this is NOT a 'war film', but an 'anti-war' film. Yes, Brian had the b*lls to make a statement declaring how awful this whole war mess in Iraq really is. And, the results are magnificent. This is possibly the most powerful piece of anti-war propaganda since Kubrick's "Paths of Glory", and/or DePalma's own "Hi, Mom!". Comparable in plot to his film "Casualties of War", DePalma used the 'raped-girl-murdered-family' theme here to symbolize the whole brutality and senselessness that is war. And, the whole 'raping of a nation' that it encompasses.
This is not just a film to make you feel proud to be an American, but to make you feel glad to celebrate the fact that there is some Human decency still left in some of us. Yes, there are criticisms about the acting in this...Wow, some people just don't have a clue! The acting in this is spot on perfect! It is not a 'Hollywood-piece-of-crap' saturated with such generic quality that makes me wanna barf. This is supposed to come across as reality, and it does!
Brian utilizes film techniques that he hasn't done since the radical days of the 1960's, when he was more of a guerrilla style filmmaker. Forget the 'Hitchcock borrower' style he so often utilizes. Yes, the film is glossy, beautiful to behold, and has magnificent cinematography, but the underlying theme is gritty and very ugly: The Truth!!!... He incorporates so many techniques and styles in this, that it is pure dizzying, just like the chaotic world of the h*ll these guys are in. Using You-tube blogs, camcorders, documentary style footage, and straight out powerhouse filmmaking, DePalma has crafted possibly the best film in his entire career.
For all the 'Bill O'Reilley's' of the world, this is not a film for small minded people like you. No, this is a film for us that hate war, detest the violence and brutality and 'rape' that it induces on us, and desire to live in peace, harmony, and love between all of the nations; NOT just one. We are all under God, not just the U.S..
The final montage of photo's is so powerful, it would take a robot not to be moved by the very haunting images on the screen. And, don't even get me started on just how awesome the whole 'bar-coming-home' scene is! This is an emotionally charged film that will leave some people weeping unabashedly, and rightfully so. No shame in that!
One of my favorite scenes is of a girl posting a You-tube blog, stating just how morose and barbaric war and machosism is. Don't let small-minded Bush-loving idiotic people cloud your judgement of this film (for most of them haven't even seen it, and if they did, they just don't understand its wonderful message), for this is such a awesome piece of filmmaking that it received a 15 minute standing ovation at its Venice premiere. The Cannes festival gave it top honors as well. O'Reilley called DePalma "The Devil" (ha-ha-ha) for making this, some have even gone as far as to call him anti-American, but most intelligent critics are declaring (like I am) this to be one of the best anti-war statements in the history of film.
This is not Hollywood, baby...This is a reflection of real life!
Hope this review is helpful to whoever reads it, and hope you enjoy the film! In the meantime, let's just hope that we don't all end up getting 'redacted' on what we want to voice as our opinion, especailly when it comes to this atrocious war (Vietnam Part 2).
Thank you & Peace out! ;-) Read more ›

21 of 34 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Anti US Military August 4, 2009

By Bernard John Noel

Format:DVD

I did a tour of duty in Iraq, I was personally involved with the Tucker & Menchata case (the two real U.S. soldiers who got kidnapped, tortured and killed in a so-called revenge for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl), and this film made me sick. It does NOT represent the real war, the constant threats coalition forces are facing, neither all the good (such as rebuilding their schools, water and electricity plants, roads, etc) we do in Iraq everyday. Then the photos showed at the end of the movie are NOT the victims of American soldiers. Let's remember that there is a huge sectarial level of violence in Iraq (between Sunnis, Shiiates, Kurdes and Christian, for instance), and that MOST Iraqis are killed by other Iraqis, not by us. All these children shown at the end of the movie were killed by other Iraqis, not by American forces. Further, I can tell you that the two psycho soldiers depicted in the movie, drinking and breaking every Army rules, are not depicting the real thing. Iraq is not Vietnam, and there is no way any commander would let their soldiers do the type of stupid things you see in the movie.

I did not like that movie, it's an insult to the real Iraq war veterans. It only depicts a couple of crazy morons, NOT the millions of servicemembers who served honorably in Iraq.