Thomas Gill The first thing that struck me was that most of the American soldiers portrayed in this documentary apparently were small town guys, with little education and not as articulate as one would hope. They joined the military not out of patriotism, but for imagined adventure. It was the army or community college. I can sympathize with them and at the same time I can understand why the Iraqi people don't like them. They are crass, bullying and overbearing.But they also are willing to take tremendous risks and are sincere in their efforts to bring stability to a country thousands of miles from their own. The entire Iraqi war seems to be a tragic, confusing mess and where it goes from here, no one really knows. The American soldiers, many just kids fresh out of high school, really want to put in their time and go home. But we know, even if they survive, they will never be the same again.

Chris_Docker I met director and ex-soldier Michael Tucker just before the screening of his documentary about post-war, minor-conflict Iraq. He looked very sombre and said American audiences tend to look at Iraq reporting as entertainment. As somebody who has followed the reporting of the Iraq war quite avidly (and with the advantage of British and international media coverage rather than the more one-sided American broadcasts), I assured him I was very interested to see what his film had to say. Disappointingly, I didn't feel this was very much.Michael Tucker has known ten people that have been killed in Iraq since he worked there with them. That is no small burden to be carrying. Sadly, I neither knew them, nor do I see any similarity between the U.S. troops in the film and British troops that would enable me to empathise to any great degree. With a couple of exceptions, the young Americans portrayed are not the best of adverts for their country - not for any terrible wrong-doing - simply they remind me of the sort of youths that hang about on street corners, that don't take anything too seriously, but have been give a wage and taught to use a gun. One female soldier and a bespectacled young man seem fairly articulate, but the others fill up much footage with inane jokes, playing guitar, and rapping. This might be quite understandable as a way of letting off steam when faced with daily dangers that most of us cannot even conceive of, but it paints a pretty uninviting picture of the individuals. As liberators, they are far from role models. If the army does them some good (which might be arguable both ways) that does not excuse the impression they create worldwide, of loud mouthed youths that have little interest or understanding of others.When I tackled Tucker about this after the film, he pointed out that the average age of American troops was quite young - about 20 - as opposed to their British counterparts, who are a bit older and more mature. Gunner Palace is the name of Saddam's former palace, now occupied by American troops and used for general partying. I searched in vain for something that would add to the arguments about the rights and wrongs of the Iraq invasion. Tucker said the general American feeling he encountered was that people supported the troops even if they didn't support the war. When I asked him how this was different in any way to his view, he seemed stumped, said his view kept changing, then he admitted he felt America had bit off more than it could chew. To him, the 'rights and wrongs' were 'obvious'. Really? We must be pretty obtuse in Britain to have been having such a lengthy debate over it in that case. Even with a Masters Degree in ethics I don't find the rights and wrongs of such a complex situation 'obvious'. I have many wonderful friends who are Americans, so I know the ones portrayed in his movie are not completely representative - but they do bolster the image Americans (according to international studies) have abroad of being noisy bullies. Apparently test screenings to army units considered the way Gunner Palace portrays the troops quite fair and representative.I pressed Tucker on whether there was an over-riding reason why he had chosen to make such a movie (I could think of a number - one might be as a tribute to the soldiers killed and a memorial their families could keep). He said he felt the media didn't cover what being an ordinary soldier in Iraq was like. That's a pretty decent reason and I support his objective in wanting to document it. Gunner Palace does show the day to day life of the squaddies (although the film could easily have been condensed into 15 minutes to show this - at 85m it has a boring monotony, too much rap, elaborate praise of McDonalds and Snapple, and kids joking about for so long that Rumsfeld starts to sound fascinating). But Gunner Palace fails to show the deeper ways those youngsters will have been affected. How far it succeeded in its stated objective is maybe for history to decide - and in the event that history can be bothered, it is to be hoped that there will be more substantial backgrounds than Mr Tucker's film alone provides. But seeing as both Americans and Iraqis have lost so much in the war it is good that responses from those countries have been appreciative.Apparently bootleg copies are freely available on the streets of Iraq.

tucker-34 Like the majority of other media, this film shows war without the warfare. Not a single dead body -- Iraqi nor American -- is shown in the film. What is war without blood and death? That is what war is. To not convey this is to not tell the truth.There are verbal references to a few of the 1,827 American soldiers that have died during this war, and to the 23,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians that have been killed (depending on what source you use) but there's no raw visual footage that shows what words cannot convey.Instead of showing the full truth of war, the film focuses too much on soldiers partying around a clear blue swimming pool. It could make a great recruitment tool.

kasserine This documentary centers around an army unit that has made its base at one of Uday Hussein's "Pleasure" Palaces. Gunner Palace, essentially, traces the lives of the members of the unit from the point of view of Michael Tucker, a reporter embedded with the unit.What works so well in this film is the simple fact that the viewer is getting to see the actual day to day activities of soldiers stationed in Iraq. It is fascinating and interesting, in this respect. What we are seeing is going on RIGHT NOW. It is unlikely the immediacy of Gunner Palace, and its impact, will be lost on anyone. Unfortunately, aside from the main strength of the film, the video footage shot by Mr. Tucker, there seems to have been little thought in how to present the information. It is simply not edited well. It proceeds in a somewhat chronological order, but is hampered by an almost comical voice over, I assume done by Tucker, himself. It sounds odd and overly dramatic, even for some as dramatic as war. The narration just doesn't work.The experiences of the soldiers themselves, are at times, very intriguing and include some amusing and often endearing raps performed by the soldiers about living in Iraq. It's clear that singing about the war, either with an electric guitar or a rap beat drummed out on a jeep is helping them get through the every day stresses they face. Presented more clearly and effectively, these raps could have given a nice structure to the film but seem more random and inserted without thought. And this is a shame, because there seems to have been a great deal of material the director could have drawn from. He was stationed there with them, for God's sake.Also, somewhat inexplicably, the director/narrator, towards the end of the film, recounts his own experiences leaving Iraq and adjusting to home life again. Why I say this is inexplicable is because one would assume it would be the final moment of the documentary with maybe an epilogue, but rather the film shifts back to Iraq and continues on. It only adds confusion and disrupts the viewers ability to track the events and people appearing in Gunner Palace.If only to see the faces of the soldiers and citizens in Iraq, as they are actually living, this film is worth seeing. It is a shame, however, that the footage Tucker shot didn't find it's way into more capable hands. Gunner Palace could have been even more compelling and affecting.