Director Brian De Palma, whose CASUALTIES OF WAR addressed a horrific tragedy that occurred during the Vietnam war, turns his attention to Iraq with an unfortunately similar tale. Inspired by true events, REDACTED follows a group of soldiers who are stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) is an aspiring .. Read more
| Starring | Rob Devaney, Izzy Diaz, Mike Figueroa, Patrick Carroll |
|---|---|
| Director | Brian De Palma |
| Genres | Drama |
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Director Brian De Palma, whose CASUALTIES OF WAR addressed a horrific tragedy that occurred during the Vietnam war, turns his attention to Iraq with an unfortunately similar tale. Inspired by true events, REDACTED follows a group of soldiers who are stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) is an aspiring filmmaker who is intent on capturing his experience on videotape. His fellow soldiers--Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll), Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney), and Gabe Blix (Kel O’Neill)--seem to be surprisingly well-adjusted at first, but it isn't long before their true colours come through. When Reno decides to get drunk and harass an Iraqi family, the situation devolves into rape and murder, putting an incredible strain on Lawyer, who wants to expose Reno but doesn’t want to rat out a fellow soldier.
In making REDACTED, De Palma embraced the various forms of technology that have allowed soldiers to connect with Americans back home: video cameras, blogs, YouTube, etc. The result is a fictional documentary that feels immediate and experimental, incorporating first-person video perspectives, security cameras, and a variety of other techniques to tell its tragic tale. De Palma is clearly unhappy with the developments in Iraq, and he wants the world to know that he doesn't support the war. REDACTED will certainly never be misconstrued as a pro-war film. This is a challenging work that attacks the very nature of the American presence in Iraq.
| Starring | Rob Devaney, Izzy Diaz, Mike Figueroa, Patrick Carroll, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Kel O'Neill |
|---|---|
| Director | Brian De Palma |
| Studio | OPTIMUM HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 30 mins Blu-ray: 1 hr 31 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English, French, Arabic, German Blu-ray: English |
| Released | DVD: 21 Jul 2008 Blu-ray: 20 Jul 2009 Production year: 2007 |
| Format | DVD |
There are two separate battles for hearts and minds being lost in Brian Casualties of War De Palmas... read more on Time Out
I've given this film 0 stars purely because I would feel indecent rating such a harrowing subject matter,considering how it would seem certain that the events depicted happened at least on one occasion..I would like to believe it was an isolated incident but who of us is to know..War is hell.
Unfortunately there are degenerate pieces of scum-sucking filth that aught to have been aborted at birth inhabiting every level of society,the armed forces being no exception.
However my problem with this film is that I'm not sure exactly what it's raison d'être was?
Straight away it relinquishes any compulsion to provide us with any semblance of truth and honesty by stating that the film is a work of fiction..However the sad fact is we know it's not..So what we have is neither a documentary that can teach nor a movie that can entertain.
I also found the closing images rather manipulative and further mockery of the whole work of fiction thing.
If there was a prize for most compelling western movie for Al-Qaeda recruitment this could be it,for that I charge Mr De'Palma with gross irresponsibility in a time of war,
I am intelligent, but this one was lost on me. I assume, from the subtle 'nudge, nudge' hints that these events happened, but were swept under the carpet. Therefore there is certainly a story to be told. However, I found this poorly acted (although I think this is the one that didn't use 'actors'), VERY poorly shot (moving from 1st person hand-held, to third person hand-held, to CCTV) and un-directed. The horrors of war are undeniable, but I found this a bizarre and poor (yes, that word again) way of bringing them to the masses. I gave up after about half an hour, my wife stuck with it and convinced me to give it a go the next day. I wish she hadn't.
Those blacked out words, lines and paragraphs in government and military reports? They've been redacted. So has the true face of the Iraq conflict, maintains Brian De Palma - and not just by the authorities, as you would expect, but by the news media. His question is simple: "Where are the images of this war?" It's obvious that he has a point. Save for carefully vetted reports from embedded journalists, Iraq is a black hole most of us struggle to imagine. De Palma is old enough to have... Read more
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