The professor and his student are talking about personal choice and responsibility as it affects the public good. The soldiers are talking, when they talk, or rather they are showing us what the fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be telling us whenever anyone is listening, that it has gone far beyond fighting for God and country and democracy in the Middle East. It is about fighting for the person in the foxhole, or sitting in the Humvee, or buried in the snow next to you.

Everything about this movie looks good and is well intentioned and smart, and tries to be fair and unbiased. But all it amounts to is a dinner party conversation about a war that is out of our control and, while not likely to upend our culture and civilization, is certainly slowing down it's positive growth. It is a conversation that will be satisfying to some and not to others and will likely end when someone turns the topic to how well the Brewers are playing right now.

"Redacted" was written, produced and directed by Brian DePalma. Stylistically it attempts to look like a documentary shot by a soldier deployed in Samara to chronicle his life in Iraq intercut with some footage from an Al-jezeera type television news program.

It's kind of like "The Blair Witch Project," only in Iraq. It is also based on a real event. By imitating an amateur production, DePalma abdicates any responsibility to have the picture look good. He also seems to have surrendered any obligation to represent real human beings with any respect for them at all. No doubt some of the people involved in Abu Ghraib, and the men who perpetrated the crime that this film is based on -- the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl -- behaved like imbecilic morons driven by nothing other than a lifetime of fear and it's even smaller brothers: hatred, video games, junk food, and a stupidity that seems to be coded in their DNA.

But, I can't believe that all of them are as inane as DePalma has depicted them here. There is no analysis. There is no attempt to understand the forces at work. He seems to thinks it's enough to throw a bunch of boobs up on screen, have them commit a truly horrendous crime, and not even bother to look at what might have driven them to that point, or what price might be paid for that crime. He has reduced the war in Iraq to a video on You Tube. "Redacted" has no depth, no insight, no compassion and no wit.

And then there's "Rendition." It broadens the war theme to the now over generalized marketing phrase "The War on Terror."

A family man, an Egyptian who has lived in the States for 20 years, is taken from the airport in New York when he arrives home from a business trip to South Africa. There has been a bombing in Egypt and his cell phone received some calls from a number that is linked to the Bin Laden type terrorist cell claiming responsibility for the bombing.

He receives "extraordinary rendition" and ends up in a prison in Northern Africa being tortured to gain more information about the terrorist cell. It all sounds familiar. We've been told this is happening. They do some water boarding, some electric shock, and lots of deprivation. He is kept naked and humiliated, and Habeas Corpus does not hold because he is in another country. Not the way the United States does business? Well, the CIA sees it differently. At least in this movie they do. Meryl Streep is the CIA. She is the reporter in "Lions for Lambs." She's brilliant and transformed in each. But, it's not enough to make either film work.

I think it is good to see, made corporeal, even in that attractive, movie-way that they make things "real," it's good to see what is being done to people in the name of the war on terror.

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Posted by dr.fran on May 5, 2008 at 3:38 p.m. (report)

Hi Mark, I've really been enjoying your reviews. They are both analytical and down to earth. I admire that you could make yourself go and watch all these films about the "War on Terror." I haven't been able to make myself do it, though I know I should. I suspect they are not getting full audiences because we are all so sick at heart about these seemingly endless and pointless invasions. I hear many people talk about feeling ashamed of our country, of wanting the ability to believe in American democracy and freedom once again. Nonetheless I believe it's a good thing that we have such quick documentation of these wars. Even though the audiences are small now, and even though we may gain more perspective as time goes on, I believe these movies will be good for our future, good to look back upon later to analyze and allow ourselves to feel the full impact of the evils our putative advanced democracy has been capable of. Fran Kaplan