dave-53-435608 Now that it is 8 years since the film came out and 12 years since the Iraq War, there is a lot of comedy that comes through, raising the entertainment value of this film. You may criticize the contrivances through a dramatic lens, but as comedy, it's more realistic!Back when it came out, it was probably easy to dismiss the film as propaganda, but with 8 more years of digital media and internet savvy under our belts, more of us can probably agree now, what isn't propaganda? Manipulation of every story is a given, either on purpose, or by ignorance. Corporate media has priorities and so do individual bloggers - reasonable priorities including their own survival and raison d'etre. The context and intention is what makes a fact exist, not a blind hard-on for what you believe is truth or morality. Otherwise you are a already victim, who will cause others to become victims. What is your intention, and how does your art and voice fall in line with it? That is the true acid test that can be accounted for, objectively. The more of these honest voices we have that are heard, we are not hostage to one "official story" of one intention, and thereby we can get closer to having our own voice heard.De Palma showed how weak and helpless we all are, all around. If that was his intention, he was in line with it. I haven't seen any other modern war film accomplish this, as honestly. In fact, I felt a lot of sympathy for the bad soldiers, because they were just weak-minded kids with no prospects who were given a license to kill, without being educated. Critics have argued against the film, saying that the soldiers in "real" life went to jail. That's a little too easy and naive way to say justice was served. Actually, it's a comic shame that the crime they committed might even be the height of their life's glory. They are just young fools with hard-ons they can't control, put into battle by nameless politicians elected by nameless citizens. They were weak enough to become criminals and we led them to the crime. In this country, it's not like anyone forces us who to elect as our representatives. No one likes to admit we have blood on our hands. We fear like any other person does. To acknowledge we are all fools, is the only way to move forward.

Theo Robertson On the 12th of March 2006 five American soldiers of the 101st Airborne walked in to a house outside the village of Yusufiyah in Iraq and murdered a mother , a father and a six year old child . After this they took turns to rape the fourteen year old daughter before killing her . This crime became known The Mumudiya Killings . This shocking crime was later turned in to a compelling book by Jim Frederick entitled Black Hearts in 2010 . Three years prior to this Brian DePalma made a highly fictionalised account called REDACTED DePalma doesn't seem an obvious choice for this type of story since he has a highly idiosyncratic camera style . That said he did make CASUALTIES OF WAR which was thematically very similar to this REDACTED though be it set in Vietnam rather than Iraq . The director's cinematic style is entirely different from what we've been used to for many years . Here instead of a camera voyeuristic moving around we have a cinema verite style complete with internet clips and a cast involving unknown actors ad-libbing The unfortunate thing is that DePalma seems way out of his depth . He fails to develop the story in anyway . Reading the Frederick's book you're aware of the brutality B Company 501st Infanrty Regiment 101st Airborne Division were experiencing with a casualty rate similar to that experienced during the Second World War . Regardless of your opinion of the war ( I was against it ) it is essential reading for the often incomprehensible nature of an insurgency conflict . REDACTED fails to give anything about the background or the context of what might have led to this type of atrocity against innocent civilians . The platoon in question see one of their comrades killed but apart from that there's no real inciting incident , there's no real character motivation and that's the fundamental failing of the film The second major failing is that the actors are fairly dreadful but I should qualify this by saying it's almost certainly not their fault because their characters have the depth of rice paper . None of this is helped by having to spontaneously spout dialogue off the top of their heads . Make no mistake you can see DePalma shouting through a loudhailer" okay you're a soldier in Iraq so pretend you're in a war-zone and ... ACTION " . This type of acting style might work in British social dramas but not in a plot driven American war film and it shows This is a very sensitive , harrowing subject matter for a film and it deserves some reverence to say the least. It's almost certain if this film is to go by that DePalma was against the war in Iraq and it's perhaps not surprising that many people who have praised REDACTED are similarly against the invasion. Regardless of my own politics I can only comment on it as a movie fan and this is a fairly poor film . One can only hope that if Hollywood get round to adapting Black Hearts they can do the full story justice for the sake of fourteen year old Abeer Qasim Hamza and her family in a conflict that saw aid workers being decapitated on the internet by insurgents

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU The film is simple and direct and does not necessitate a long story to tell the "plot" or the "drama". In Iraq the Americans are doing a bad job. In that case, a small squadron is pacifying a small zone. One day two or three of them get berserk and they invade a house, arrest one man, and then later, at night, they will come back to rape a fifteen year old girl and they will kill everyone, mother, father, grandfather and smaller sister. It will come out, especially after the insurgents capture one man of this small unit and plainly slaughter him with a knife and behead him. The film shows how no justice will come out of that story and even the GI who will reveal the story on the Internet will become the real culprit for the investigating unit. He will end up guilty in his mind forever after he is released from his military position. He will always considers himself as the one who saw one girl being raped, killed and then burnt while her whole family was being assassinated and he did nothing because one of the killers gave him the order to get out and stand watch in the street and he obeyed. There is no clean war. War is always dirty, but there are some wars where we can find some justification for that dirt, be it patriotic or defensive, or whatever. In this case there is no justification though we could give volumes of explanations. It would amount to nothing but that: take young males away from their natural environment, put them in a hostile and completely different environment, lock them up in cramped housing conditions forcing the most extreme promiscuity onto them and among them, without any kind of sexual satisfaction possible in a country like Iraq where prostitution could not even be thought of, and either they accept to satisfy their hunger within their promiscuity, one way or another often leading to inner conflicts and fights, or by forcing their sexual needs onto unwilling women outside, young if possible of course. Just sending human beings in such conditions is a crime against humanity and war should be banned. But the worst part of it is that this war was entirely decided against the better judgment of the whole world and exclusively justified with lies hammered onto us by a bunch a liars. You can imagine then how horrifying the vision of the last still images of collateral victims can be.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

John Monty The director just shown a damn dare. The camera work is horrible. I don't like to see a movie which seems like tapped on a handy-cam. Its kinda weird to watch a movie on a fixed angle, and without any camera motion.More or less, the movie doesn't have any story. I expected it to be a high voltage fighting action movie as its poster seems like US army on a action. But... I only found few bullshit butts all around the movies.Finally how come a handicapped person became a soldier at US army at this movie? His behavior sounds so much irritating to me. My god... a sick person as a army soldier???