Customer Reviews

Redacted

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

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! ;-)

Had to see what the controversy was with this one, and this is an action film in a documentary style that is fast and will hold your attention.

I had an issue with the depiction of soldiers in the movie. Well, not the soldiers that are in the movie, the ones offscreen. The vast majority of US soldiers are honorably doing an honorable job, with plenty of their enemies constantly trying to provoke them. Those soldiers are not shown in Redacted and there is no reminder whatsoever that the ones shown are an anomaly. That said, the murders depicted did happen and there was no way to dress it up and make the motives of those people look good. There is a rape that happens with the soldier holding a camera, filming it as it happens and the rest of the other soldiers trouncing through the house, and then afterward a local man talking about it, apparently this was a scene that caused some controversy when it was thought to be a real scene when in reality it was filmed using actors and not at all actual footage. The scenes are glossy and beautiful, and there is an underlying theme that is witty, gritty and it has its moments that make you laugh. This is mostly an action film that is not one for you if you want dialogue and lines but very dramatic and and hard to take your eyes off of, it does a wonderful job of revealing what goes on behind the scenes while being entertaining and leaving an impression that is memorable. When I get a chance to check out more films of this genre I am sure I will remember this one as being the best lately. Overall, recommended.

Aryan Somers

This is hailed by a LOT of critics as an utter masterpiece that leaves them breathless. I agree. If you have read any of my other reviews, you'll see that I am a very huge fan of Brian De Palma'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 De Palma's own "Hi, Mom!". Comparable in plot to his film "Casualties of War", De Palma 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! I am still stumped by the fact that this film was considered so 'controversial'.

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, De Palma 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.. Yes, we do need to start a tsunami of Truth, and my man De Palma has tried to instigate just that with this brilliant film.

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 machochism 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.

Too bad more anti-war films don't have the same kind of distinctive style and voice as "Redacted". O'Reilley called De Palma "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. O'Reilley and the whole Factor should be treated as an Enemy of the People.

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, especially when it comes to this atrocious war (Vietnam Part 2).
Thank you & Peace out! ;-)

I rented this movie after reading a fairly animated op-ed piece in The Guardian regarding the dispute after the movie's release. Being one for truth and dissent, I thought I'd give this movie its fair shake.

To begin with, I am aware of the incident that the movie depicts. I understand the goal of this movie and what Brian De Palma intended to accomplish by releasing it. However, pontification aside, the movie must be reviewed on its cinematic merit and not simply because it is intended to be a message delivering vehicle no matter how noble the intentions of the director.

Several reviewers have already nailed it: if you're looking for an exposé of the Mahmoudiya incident or of the overall wisdom of George W. Bush's Iraq escapade, I respectfully suggest you look elsewhere. The very much underrated television series Over There (13 Episodes) or perhaps Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq or George Packer's book The Assassins' Gate : America in Iraq are better starting points.

While De Palma captures the feel of Iraq - the grittiness of the terrain, the harshness of the conditions, and the gulf that exists between the ideal of the American mission in Iraq and the reality of those who have been sent there to carry it out, sitting through the movie, I couldn't get past the agonizingly cartoonish portrayal of the American soldiers. Their comments and actions fall into every cliché and stereotype that one could imagine.

Beyond the cartoonish depictions of the soldiers, situations are presented that simply are not realistic. An Al Jazeera-type news crew embedded with an American platoon as it conducts a house-to-house search that sets the foundation for the later tragedy. Drunken soldiers conspiring to commit murder while being videotaped by a fellow soldier. This list goes on.

"Over-acting", "bad acting", "bad directing," call it what you will but the depiction of the American soldiers and the events surrounding the Mahmoudiyah incident are simply not believable.

The most ridiculous line from the movie, supposedly an off-the-cuff, extemporaneous remark made by the movie's protagonist unknowingly while on camera: "A Band of Brothers, losing their moral compass and trying to reap vengeance on a fifteen year-old girl." Despite the gravity moment I actually found myself laughing at the absurdity of this statement given the context within which it was made.

There's a message here, most definitely. The Mahmoudiya incident that the movie depicts was horrific. Iraq remains an American tragedy. Unfortunately, both the lesser and greater messages have been delivered credibly elsewhere. One star.

[This review refers to the version which aired on HDNet, not the DVD. Based on some comments in other reviews, the DVD appears to have been reedited and the sequence of some scenes some changed.]

It's hard to believe this is from the same person who directed "Scarface". This is "The Blair Witch Project" meets "Full Metal Jacket" meets "Loose Change". It really watches like some teenager decided to make a war movie after spending a weekend watching Vietnam flicks. Has De Palma ever met anyone in the military? Has he ever worked a set where there were ex-military advisers (like most military themed movies use)? The problems with this movie are five-fold. First, the storyline is somewhat cartoonish. Second, the characters are just copies of some of the worst war movie stereotypes. De Palma obviously based the "Rush" character on Leonard "Private Pyle" Lawrence in "Full Metal Jacket". Flake is a clone of PFC Louden Downey in "A Few Good Men", or perhaps Lennie Small from "Of Mice and Men". Third, some of the Internet scenes make me wonder if De Palma has ever been online or used a web browser. They are just odd. Four, the facility the Army members use as their bunk house has all kinds of industrial equipment, including a big, pale blue wall with gauges and levers like the engine room out of a 1950's sci-fi flying saucer. Fifth, and most importantly, the story is just bad, and really hard to believe. I don't mean the rape/murder, I mean everything else The "interrogation" scene of SPC McCoy makes no sense. First, in a legal investigation, why is an NCO interrogating someone? A JAG officer would be doing that, or in a non-legal investigation, an assigned officer would be doing it.

Literally every scene, with the exception of the very first scene, is like it was done by clueless teenagers and leaves any non-ignorant person saying to themselves "it would never happen that way". Down to the bizarre (and totally implausible) final scene, where McCoy breaks down but his buddy still demands a photo of him and his wife, and the totally weird applause for McCoy from the bar crowd.

This movie is best described as the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of war movies. No, make that the "Showgirls" of war movies. That's a better comparison. What "Showgirls" is to "My Fair Lady", "Redacted" is to war movies.

But it is worse than that, and here is why.

Every character with any relation to the military, with the sole exception of SPC McCoy, is depicted as corrupt. Even McCoy's father does not support his son. We get the impression the senior McCoy was a career military man, either an officer or senior NCO, but he tries to get his son to not report what happened. That just does not seem believable. And he refers to what it would do to "The Corps". The Corps is the Marines, but the movie's characters were Army.

It is just so odd, I have to wonder if De Palma really wrote this film. He cannot do something that God-Awfully bad. I mean, it reminds me of a middle eastern soap opera you might see on Palestinian television, the caricatures are so, so bad. Filled with stereotypes, bad stories, and just oddness.

De Palma could have made a good movie, using the basic concepts of "Redacted", but he did not.

P.S. The movie, during "French documentary" sequence, wrongly claims Iraqi literacy is only 50%, pointing out this statistic while referring to Arabic language signs at traffic checkpoints. Iraqi literacy in 2000 was 74.1%, and for males (likely drivers in an Arabic country), it was 84.1%. You have to ask "Why" on this point. Why, in a pseudo-documentary style present incorrect information? Is it just sloppiness, or intentional?

I completely understand why most reviewers, professional critics and individual customers alike, would find this film problematic. I think De Palma is often misunderstood and is a master satirist. This film is no exception, and the issue that most people get hung up on is the topical aspects of the film: namely the issue of the rape and murder of the girl and her family (which really happened and our mainstream press has largely and uncritically ignored) by U.S. G.I.s and the war in general. Certainly these issues are core to the film, but the larger missive is our obsession with the circus of voyeurism (and its narcissistic tendencies, as in with 'realilty tv', blogs, this review, etc.). Furthermore, the last scene nicely conveys the role all Americans, and Europeans for that matter, have played in the complicity with the destruction of Iraqi society. Liking this film is hard, because it means acknowledging your own role in living in relative luxury and fairly unaffected in the U.S. while your government and military have set in motion intractable events effectively eroding Iraqi civil society. This is a hard pill to swallow.

Amateur hour. Can't believe De Palma made this. Just because you don't get big name actors dosen't mean they have to be terrible.

Before I get into details about this movie, let me just ask the question; What would you want to do to someone who gang-raped your daughter or sister, shot her in the head and then burned her body?

About the director; He is the same guy who directed Scarface, one of the best movies of all time. He is also not someone who has an agenda like some of you have suggested.

About the acting; Its not an oscar worthy performances, but its real. If they were any better, the movie would be BS.

About the movie; If you cant stand this movie, maybe you cant stand the truth. It is based on a true story. One girl, Abeer Qassim, was gang raped, shot in the head, set on fire while her parents were in another room and were also shot and burned to death. This is one incident. Can anyone assure me that something like it did not happen somewhere else in Iraq. Can you guarantee me that no other 14 year old girl was gang raped and killed by US soldiers. I give so much credit to the director because he had the testicular fortitude to let the people get a taste of what our brave troops are doing. Dont get me wrong, not all our troops are rapists or killers. But how many get drunk and end up raping girls or women or go out to waste some ragheads? We need to understand one thing from this movie and it is that some people become terrorists because they have no other choice. With actions like Abu Grhaib, Haditha or other massacres of innocent people or the raping of little girls, there will always be new terrorists. 9-11 does not justify the raping of little girls in Iraq nor does it justify putting 85,000 Iraqi civilians in body bags according to Iraqbodycount. We need to reevaluate our policies toward the Middle East for the next 100 years if we really want to live in Peace. Invading Iraq, Syria, or whoever is on the US hit list will only create more terrorists. Occupying a nation of people will always result in the madness we see such as the recent murders in Jerusalem by Palestinian gunmen. There is no justification for murdering innocent people, but we cant be blind and not look at the whole picture. We need to be smart and we need to do what is right and get the hell out of Iraq no matter what happens there. I hear the excuse that their will be a civil war if the troops leave. The civil war was kicked off the minute US soldiers stepped on Iraqi soil. The bleeding has not stopped since.

The soldier in the last part of the movie when he was being interrogated said something I think is worth repeating.

"I didn't want to be a part of it, I didn't want to see it, Why dont you believe me!" This made me wonder about how many "its" get put under the rug to save face and keep our presence in Iraq justified.

Please google The Al-Mahmudiyah killings and see how accurate this movie is to what really happened in 2006.

Please don't let your politics cloud your judgement. I was in the U.S. Army as a Chem Ops specialist. I got out before I could be deployed to Iraq, but if I had been, I would've served my country to the best of my ability. That having been said, I am of the camp who feels the war (and the U.S. government's promotion of it) is an example of the worst kind of hypocrisy and selfishness.

But who cares what I think about the war?

The truth is, this is a very bad movie. Not because it portrays American soldiers as either ignorant hotheads or shameful cowards. Not because it promotes sympathy toward the civilians (and, by proxy, avenging "terrorists") who needlessly lose their lives in the war's chaotic progress. Not because it's hard to tell just what DePalma's point is, other than that the American government regularly censors and distorts the truth in order to promote its own ends (like this message is something none of us have ever heard before or even have a hard time believing). No. Please don't be confused. The movie is bad for very different reasons.

For one, it's boring. Painfully boring. I dare you to sit through the first twenty minutes without once looking at your watch. Young U.S. soldiers shift restlessly in their boots at baked, sandblown checkpoints, staring and sweating, an artistic attempt to show the viewer how this kind of unchecked boredom can result in violence, even if only as a means to bring noise to endless silence. Sad to say, you'll begin begging for something to happen, too. We get it; the soldiers are bored, and that's one reason why they make such stupid and vicious decisions. No need to bore the audience as well.

Another reason? The acting is absolutely atrocious. At no point was I not aware that I was watching actors. DePalma's decision to cast relative unknowns was in keeping with the authentic feel he was going for with the piecemeal construction, the splicing of home videos, newsreels, and webcam footage. The connections of these mediums does give the movie some sheen of believability, but that is shattered from word one by hammy emoting and achingly tired dialogue.

And the story? These are the "imagined events" surrounding a true event, a disgusting travesty to be sure, and one that deserves the light of day, which is why it is so sad that it is this movie that seeks to bear that responsibility. A movie is not necessarily important (or even despicable) simply by virtue of the story it wishes to tell. Maybe DePalma thought his story's potency would infuse his actual storytelling, maybe he expected the outstanding indignation of it all to overshadow the petty and prolonged manner in which it was told. If so, he was wrong.

The movie makes much of truth and how it is subverted. The real truth is this: it's a very, very sad day for me when a movie whose core message I think is incredibly important turns out to be this incredibly bad.

First, I object to the depiction of soldiers in the movie. Well, not the soldiers that are in the movie, but rather the ones offscreen. The vast majority of US soldiers are honorably doing a very dangerous job, with enemies who are constantly trying to provoke them to treat Iraqis badly. Those soldiers are NOT shown in Redacted and there is no reminder whatsoever that the psychopaths depicted are an aberration. That all said, the murders depicted did happen and there was no way to dress it up to make the US look good.

Most reviewers are focussed on the movie's primary subject - the rape and murders. This is Casualties of War v2.

To me, the more important point is made earlier on, as you watch the squad on checkpoint duty. It is a miserable position to be in, to be constantly at risk, at the hands of unseen enemies, in an alien country where you don't speak the language. The soldiers are shown to have lost most of their empathy for the Iraqis, and I am not sure you can blame them. You can't blame the non-insurgent Iraqis either, both are suffering. But what exactly is the visible difference between an insurgent and a civilian Iraqi? Darn hard to tell, from the point of view of the soldiers, that's the problem.

Re. the murders: out of 5 soldiers, 2 are psychos, 1 happily films them and the rest don't do a thing about it. Very nuanced, Mr. De Palma. The soldier who gets decapitated later is conveniently the cameraman. In the real incident in Iraq, an innocent soldier was kidnapped and decapitated, but he wasn't even in the same unit. Not a subtle difference, so why couldn't De Palma be honest about it?

So, why 3 stars? Well, 2 would be more to my taste, because of the anti-military bias. However, there have been way too many Iraqi civilian deaths, because of insufficient restraint on the use of deadly force (never mind that inter-ethnic violence kills more Iraqis, that's not what al Quaeda propaganda is going to focus on).

That seems to be changing, but movies like Redacted, despite its flaws, are a needed wakeup call nevertheless. Especially when a Vice President can condone Gestapo-era torture methods and keep his job. You can't win these wars without restraint but the troops are also constantly being put in a position where hesitation can get them killed. A very difficult problem. The price of getting it wrong? Vietnam, Chechnya, Algeria, etc...

To the troops: take care, be safe, be honorable. To Iraqis: may you find peace.