Taking It Home: Restrepo

(Images courtesy Outpost Films)

"Our idea was...let's make the most visceral war film you've ever seen." 

So said photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who partnered with author/journalist Sebastian Junger to create the Sundance-award winning documentary Restrepo, which delivers what's sure to be the most nerve-racking viewing experience of the year so far. Inception plays like a Saturday morning cartoon in comparison. If Restrepo isn't the most visceral war film we've ever seen, it's at least the most visceral movie about the war in Afghanistan that we've yet seen, and the most insightful documentary on the 21st-century soldier's experience since The War Tapes (which, along with the disappointing Gunnar Palace, comprise the few films that actually feature soldiers and not actors). 

Pro-war, anti-war, McChrystal, Wikileaks, whatever. The talking heads and the rest of the U.S. should stop shouting and hand-wringing for a moment to witness what's actually happening on the ground, or at least was in 2007-08. Restrepo follows the deployment of a dozen or so brave American infantrymen from Second Platoon, Battle Company, of the 173rd Airborne, who spent more than a year in Afghanistan's deadly Korengal Valley. The reasons to see this documentary are as numerous as the opinions about what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan (i.e., the "graveyard of empires"); suffice to say you don't have much business in a conversation about the latter until you've seen the former.

P.O.V. (Season 21, Fall Special): The Way We Get By

This is what "supporting the troops" looks like...

It was tragically ironic that I watched The Way We Get By on the same night as President Obama's speech outlining the troop surge in Afghanistan. Any other night the speech would have been mildly depressing, but that night, after watching the story of a group of seniors greeting more than 900,000 soldiers stepping back onto U.S. soil in Bangor, ME, well, it was soul-crushing. 

The Way We Get By, which is still available to view for free online at PBS through Sunday, is not a documentary about the war (we've had plenty of those, most forgettable), and it's not even about the soldiers. It is about finding meaning in the sunset years of life, and serving others without any condition or expectation of reward. In essence, it is about finding life in the face of death.

Taking It Home: The Hurt Locker

[A reminder: "Taking It Home" is an alternative review style in which I haphazardly share my thoughts on a movie's themes and how they may relate to my life, while focusing less on the acting, writing, technical aspects, or even plot of the film. It's simply a collection of the ideas I took home, "because the movie experience shouldn't end in the theater".]

I think it was during a marathon desert standoff between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi militants in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker that I had a realization both horrifying and humbling: these guys are just actors. This is a set, and soon after this scene was filmed, Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie probably relaxed in cooled trailers on location in Jordan before eventually heading home to posh Los Angeles-area homes. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; it's how movies are made.

But as I've written ad nauseam here over the last couple of years, the unspoken truth of The Hurt Locker and every similar movie made recently is that there are a couple million Jeremy Renners and Anthony Mackies who aren't returning to posh Los Angeles-area homes. They're returning to our blocks, our apartment buildings, our families, our schools, our workplaces and our circles of friends.

Of the few veterans I know who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan (or even Vietnam, for that matter), none have engaged in conversation with me about their tours abroad. I can't blame them; after all, like the exaggeratedly naive army psychiatrist in The Hurt Locker, I wouldn't know the first thing about the pain of their experiences. My military service has been limited to obediently registering for the Selective Service System when I turned 18 and then, in the absence of a draft, steering far and clear of recruiting offices.

I'm too old now to be drafted even if the Congress and the President ever authorized one, but that's little comfort when I know that so many people around me are going to be dealing with PTSD and other physical and psychological wounds for the rest of their lives. That my future children and I will be paying for their lifelong medical care with our taxes may not be much of a sacrifice compared with what they've given for their beliefs (or if you like, "our country" and "my freedom"), but I feel like my continued efforts to bring this conversation to light might be productive in some way.

For example, I lamented on the 5 year anniversary of the war in Iraq that the 100+ movies to date had done nothing but further stereotypes. Three weeks later when I reviewed Stop-Loss, my #8 best movie of 2008, I called it "the first important movie about the war in Iraq, and the only one I can recommend that isn't a documentary...the first mainstream movie (The War Tapes from '06 is a similar doc) that may wake up the public and start a dialogue about the future."

It it didn't really happen then and it may not happen after The Hurt Locker, either, primarily because it's framed as a gripping thriller instead of a character drama. Not since United 93 has a film featured such unbearable suspense through scenes in which the resolution is already known, or at least easily foreseen. It's not that The Hurt Locker is predictable, but aside from two key scenes (the aforementioned desert shootout being one of them), you can see every explosion - or non-explosion - coming well enough in advance to feel some sense of security. The story can't continue without the characters, after all, so they have to stay alive at least most of the way through.

As it is, staying alive seems to be the primary goal of all soldiers as they count down the days until their rotation is complete (the actual count on screen in The Hurt Locker is a little too convenient to the ending, in my opinion). Within this daily struggle, then, is when we really see the toll exacted on their minds - the constant paranoia, the distrust of anyone not wearing a uniform, the stamina required to remain mentally alive in a place surrounded by death.

These are the invisible scars they will bring home, and to the extent that we actually see how PTSD and war dependency develop (as opposed to Stop-Loss, in which we only witness the after effects), The Hurt Locker absolutely provides more insight than any other Iraq War film to date (again, other than The War Tapes, which if I haven't already made it abundantly clear is the best documentary about the war hands-down).
Much has been made about the "realism" portrayed in The Hurt Locker, but I think it's worth mentioning that the Army refused to support this movie "due to inaccurate depictions of soldiers". According to an article featuring interviews with actual EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) soldiers in Iraq who viewed the film, most of them appreciated the effort but made it clear that "it's definitely Hollywood". One of them complained that "the movie was a little skewed toward PTSD...it's not as prevalent as it is in this movie."

I find that hard to believe based on the number of news reports these days about suicide rates among veterans. If "war is a drug" (as presented by the quote that leads off The Hurt Locker), and these soldiers are coming home with raging addictions to said drug, exactly what are they going to do when it's no longer available and they can't get their fix? What kind of symptoms can we expect to see from this withdrawal? These are the questions that horrify me much more than any of the bombs, bullets, or blood on the screen in these war movies.

Veterans' issues aside, another point made by a soldier actually does support a suspicion I had about The Hurt Locker: "The way [James] was poking around and fooling with the IEDs without knowing what they were is extremely dangerous...I don't think someone like Staff Sgt. James would do well [in the field]." Phew. Although I was wracked with tension during most of the bomb defusing scenes, I couldn't believe that a soldier would really act as such a rebellious renegade and later on be commended on his actions by a commanding officer. I know there are some real heroes in our military ranks, but my hope would be that they are taking such insane risks only under duress, not as regular practice.

Speaking of regular practice, I greatly enjoyed how screenwriter Mark Boal (who also wrote 2007's simply decent In the Valley of Elah) turned war movie production on its head once again by only featuring three main characters in The Hurt Locker. A handful of other recent war movies (Three Kings, Jarhead, Rescue Dawn, Flags of Our Fathers, Miracle at St. Anna) have also narrowed their focus, and I greatly prefer it to the regular competition of "how many big name stars can you cast in one movie". Examples of this include but are not limited to: Platoon, Casualties of War, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Pearl Harbor, Windtalkers, When We Were Soldiers, and, if you like, even Tropic Thunder. In my opinion, a focus on fewer characters lends itself to much more interesting storytelling.

Finally, I find it curious that the three films I have discussed here as the best of the Iraq War bunch (The Hurt Locker, Stop-Loss, and The War Tapes) have two other interesting traits in common: a.) they don't feature a lot of explosions and shoot-outs, and b.) they are all directed by American women. Coincidence? Hmm...

What did you take home?

300 Words About: Waltz With Bashir

The horror of remembering the sins of the past...

In reviewing the underrated Stop-Loss just about a year ago, I asked the question,”… are we going to be ready when the real effects of the war start here? When hundreds of thousands of veterans are going through the same unexaggerated struggles as these characters?” The answer, I still believe, is no.

But what I failed to consider until I saw Waltz with Bashir is that a number of these veterans may not even remember their experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other undisclosed places. No harm, no foul? Not quite, but an interesting phenomenon to consider. With Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman has turned the stereotype of the war-traumatized soldier on its head, introducing us to himself in one of the most personal films of the year (alongside another powerful documentary, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father).

Having passively observed as a 19 year-old Israeli soldier the brutal massacre of two refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, Folman found himself simply unable to remember the incident when another veteran described a recurring nightmare to him one night at a bar. Upset and eventually unsettled by his own foggy visions of the past, Folman set out to find those who fought by his side with hope that they would shed light on what really happened.

Animated but not rotoscoped, the result is an often hypnotizing blend of interviews and reenactments that illustrates a troubling history not only in Beirut, but also in the minds of so many Israeli soldiers. What must it be like to realize you've been a part of something so reprehensible? Though I'm sure Israeli war veterans don't comprise much of the Academy, it struck a nerve with enough voters to earn a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, even if it was overlooked for Best Animated Film (dogs and robots and pandas go down a little easier for the kids, you know) and Best Documentary Feature (the animation likely distracted from the reality for many voters).

If it isn't obvious enough, Folman readily admits Waltz with Bashir is "a very anti-war statement. I was trying to say that wars are really useless and a waste of life for so many people for the sake of nothing." That much is clear - what's not is just how many American soldiers will be making the same film in 30 years.

P.O.V. (Season 20, #16): Soldiers of Conscience

I know it's been a while since I profiled one of these, but if you remember my P.O.V. season preview, many of the ones I wanted to see came at the end of the season, which is now. Plus Up The Yangtze has already been reviewed here. Plus I've been really busy.

Anyway, Soldiers of Conscience was the last official P.O.V. documentary of this season, and wow, what a way to finish the year. I can't say I'm not suspicious that it was scheduled as the last one in order to be close to the election, but then again I'm suspicious about everything happening right now. As if people haven't already made up their minds?

Speaking of the mind - it is the place where this deeply probing documentary lies. Through interviewing current and former soldiers, including several conscientious objectors, Soldiers of Conscience explores the fuzzy area where war and morality intersect. The film, by husband and wife filmmakers Catherine Ryan and Gary Weinberg, can be seen for the next few days in its entirety on the P.O.V. website (it may also be showing on your local PBS station for another week or two). Be advised, you will see the horrors of war - several scenes took my breath away. You will see many people dead, and you will see many people die. And this is actual footage, not some stylish, glamorized Hollywood blockbuster. It is not for the faint of heart.

And neither is war, as so many of these soldiers report. This isn't news; the effects of war on the human mind have been documented for years, but only a few soldiers are ever willing to talk about it, and even fewer are willing or able to describe how their mind changed because of their experience in war.

Aidan Delgado, Joshua Casteel, Camilo Mejia and Kevin Benderman are four of those soldiers, all of whom served in Iraq and two of whom successfully received conscientious objector status before their honorable discharge.

Delgado, who was the focus of national attention when he appeared on "60 Minutes" in 2004 while still AWOL, receives the most sympathetic treatment in this film. "There's no higher assertion of freedom than to follow your conscience," says Delgado, who spent nearly a year in jail while waiting for his conscientious objector status to be approved (which is no small feat as described here - sounds like filling your FAFSA out in Chinese and then having to orally defend it in Russian). Says Delgado, "Nothing prepares you for the unmeasured killing of civilians." He recalls an incident (complemented by video footage) in which a political protest in Iraq turned violent. He saw a young boy in the crowd with a grenade and immediately succumbed to his "reflexive fire training". He says he doesn't remember pulling the trigger, and didn't know what happened until he saw the boy later dragged out of a pool of blood. When he got back to base he disarmed his weapon and saw he had fired not one, but 11 shots.

A troubling story, and one that reinforces the lessons being taught by Lt. Col. Peter Kilner at the U.S. Military Academy at Westpoint, who boasts that "reflexive fire training" increased firing rates by over 300% after World War II. As he describes it, such training is meant to override moral reasoning; there is no time to think about what is wrong and right, and the decision-making process is eliminated. "No one likes to kill," says Kilner. "It may be nasty, it may be unpleasant, but the alternative is worse." But what is the alternative? We don't hear. "I've never killed anyone, but I've talked to a lot of people who have," finishes Kilner. More from him later.

Carlos Meija was at the Army recruiting office signing his enlistment papers on the morning of September 11, 2001. He remembers being disturbed at the behavior around him during basic training, including his own. He couldn't believe "how easy it was when you're surrounded by people shouting 'Kill, Kill, Kill!', to also shout 'Kill!'." However, he describes how during his time in Iraq he was never able to "make the jump" and see the enemy as subhuman. Rather, he saw the enemy as himself - a young soldier with orders to follow. Although a commanding officer reassured him "if you hurt others because you have to, and without hatred in your heart, it's alright," Meija applied for conscientious objector status and was immediately ostracized by his platoon: "They see you as the enemy." Meija is now the co-chair of the board of directors of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"We sleep comfortably in our beds because violent men do violent things on our behalf," explains Joshua Casteel, an Evangelical Christian who left the army after a short stint and then reenlisted again after 9/11. It's a saying he read long ago, and a saying he no longer believes. While serving as an interrogator at Abu Ghraib, Casteel had his "crystallization of conscience" (the moment necessary to prove when applying for conscientious objector status). He was interrogating a jihadist and surprisingly found himself stuck in a tit-for-tat stalemate discussion about the misinterpreted religious duty to kill the enemy. He realized neither he or the jihadist was getting anywhere, but he desperately wanted to continue the discussion and learn more about the jihadist's views. It was then that Casteel decided he had to get out, reasoning that "following Christ means taking seriously the charge for peace-making."

The role of religion springs up like this several times in the film (including Sgt. Kevin Benderman's description of his crystallization of conscience: "Why am I carrying an M-16 around in the Garden of Eden?"), but one moment really troubled me. Lt. Col. Kilner uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to justify the need for war. What if the Samaritan would have come earlier, asks Kilner. Would it have been better for him to wait for the beating to stop before helping, or would it have been better to use force - lethal force if necessary - to stop the beating?

It's not that this question isn't worthy of discussion, but it reveals a total misunderstanding of the parable. It wasn't about what the Samaritan did, but who the Samaritan was, and the fact that both a priest and a Levite passed by the victim first and did nothing. Pointing out this misunderstanding doesn't answer Kilner's question, but it still concerns me that the military continues to refashion religious scripture and make it convenient to the moral reasoning they need to justify to themselves that killing is excusable.

Oops. Have I shown my colors? Yes, I sympathize with these soldiers. I am a person of conscience, I suppose, and I'm trouble that so many people have been thrown into the mess of war, either forcibly or voluntarily, only to realize that taking another life isn't as easy it seems in so many video games and movies. "Some people say, 'Once a soldier, always a soldier,'" says Delgado. "Well, once a human being, always a human being." I agree, while fully admitting that I've never been a soldier in any military and can only speak from the "human being" perspective.

Kilner claims that a conscientious objector's "freedom to dissent is made possible by the very soldiers they criticize." Well...maybe, but by that stretch reasoning I'm obliged to thank the military for everything I have in my life, including my opinions, right? So how does it work in a country like Costa Rica, which has no standing military? And what about Germany? According to a statistic shown in the film (which I have yet to corroborate), 150,000 Germans were drafted into mandatory military service in 2004. Of these, 70,000 served in the military and 80,000 became conscientious objectors and completed domestic community service instead.

It's an incredible statistic, and it's no wonder it comes right after Delgado makes an interesting insight about World War II. He claims that military promoters often ask, "What if no one had stopped Hitler?," to which he replies, "Well, what if there would have been enough conscientious objectors in Hitler's army?" It's a clever, unprovable, and naive point, which Delgado readily admits. But he is convinced, "peace is not a Utopian vision."

Soldiers of Conscience is more of a psychological documentary than a political documentary, and although it gives fair screen time to Kilner (interesting name, I just noticed) and other active soldiers who morally justify killing, it's not quite as even-handed as it claims. Let's just say you're probably not going to gain a new sympathy for military philosophy. Additionally, the disturbing visuals and somewhat scattered editing sometimes make it confusing for the viewer to figure out who is saying what and which pictures and videos actually relate to our subjects. Not a major problem, but one that bugged me a little bit.

As always, the conversation can be continued at the P.O.V. blog, where already many former and active members of the military have spoken their mind on the issue and the film. Additionally, you can find updates about the film's subjects and learn more about the moral justification for killing on Kilner's blog.

REVIEW: Standard Operating Procedure (A-)

Background: At the risk of losing any credibility I might have, I need to admit that I've not seen Gates of Heaven or The Thin Blue Line (considered two of the most important documentaries of all time) in their entirety. Unfortunately, the only work I've seen by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. If you have not seen the 2004 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature since it played in the theater, revisit it as soon as possible. You'll lose sleep, but you'll gain perspective as well. Morris' new film, Standard Operating Procedure, focuses on the infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib, and it was the winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in February. I have to mention here that I attended a screening of Standard Operating Procedure followed by a discussion with Errol Morris and his set photographer, Nubar Alexanian. In most cases this does not significantly affect my impression of a movie, but I'm convinced that my experience with Standard Operating Procedure would have been very different had it not been followed by such a lengthy and illuminating discussion.

Synopsis: Do a little research if you've never heard of Abu Ghraib before, because Morris is not interested in educating us with elementary facts. Right away we're in the middle of the videos and photographs - thousands of them from several different cameras, including angles the public hasn't seen before. As we're taken through an examination of the circumstances surrounding these infamous photos, we hear directly from the familiar faces that are in front of and behind the camera, including Lynndie England, Javal Davis, Megan Ambuhl Graner, Sabrina Harman, Janis Karpinski, and Jeremy Sivits. They candidly explain not just why and how the pictures were taken, but what they were thinking at the time and, most importantly, what was going on that wasn't documented. Within this analysis, Morris interjects artistic reenactments and showy camera work. He lets the interviewees present most of the political talking points for him, and perhaps consequently, he leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

I Loved:
+ The fascinating interviews that left me hanging on every word. The honesty with which the interviewees speak is unbelievable, and Morris' "Interro-tron" creates an unparalleled sense of intimacy for the viewer.
+ The cinematography, particularly the extreme close-ups and mesmerizing, 1000 fps slow-motion shots. On the cooking egg shot, Morris quipped that his favorite practice (and his advice for future filmmakers) is to "just show things dropping."

I Liked:
+ The singular and unwavering focus on the photographs and the circumstances surrounding them. The precision to which the photographs are examined is stunning, and the visual organization is well designed.
+ The funniest line in an unfunny film - Javal Davis, on using country music as a torture device after "Hip Hop Hooray" and "Enter Sandman" failed: "That worked."
+ The musical score by Danny Elfman, even though it initially reminded me of the Spider-Man trilogy.

I Disliked:
- The reenactments of the torture and photo incidents. I understand that we were supposed to see what wasn't in the photographs, but to me they were flashy, unnecessary visuals that ultimately didn't show us anything new. The uncropped photos were more illuminating for me.

I Hated:
- Not hearing from Charles Graner, who is imprisoned and has no way to try to convince us that he is actually human.
- The uncensored photographs. I mentioned the same thing in my review of Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side: despite the fact that we don't know who they are, these men are still actual people, and continuing to humiliate them for years after they were tortured doesn't sit right with me. This film actually happens to be about the power of photographs (unlike Taxi), so I can't fault Morris for using them. It's not the use that I hate; I just have a visceral reaction that tells me these men, if truly innocent, somehow deserve better.

Grade:
Writing - N/A
Acting - N/A
Production - 8
Emotional Impact - 9
Music - 5
Significance - 5

Total: 27/30= 90% = A-

Last Word (expanded): "There is an inherent mystery to every photograph," said Errol Morris early in the post-screening discussion, which lasted nearly as long as the film itself. If you're familiar with his blog (and his other films), you know Morris has an obsession for studying images. An important excerpt:

"...photographs attract false beliefs...photography can makes us think we know more than we really know. It is easy to confuse photographs with reality. To many of us, photographs are reality. But however real they may seem, they are not reality. Reality is three-dimensional. Photographs are but two-dimensional, and record only a moment, a short interval of time snatched from the long continuum of before and after...They provide an imperfect simulacrum of the surface of things."

As Morris outlines with the meticulous detail of a forensic scientist in Standard Operating Procedure, the photographs from Abu Ghraib have simply tricked us into believing in a reality that did not exist the way we think it did. He attempts with moderate success to convince us that the "few bad apples" we want to blame are the wrong ones - that their complicity only relates to the photographs and the extent to which they were influenced by their environment.

In terms of the technical merits of the film, Morris has created an absorbing and often gripping documentary. His use of light, sound, quick edits and music borders on manipulative, but it also adds a stylish sense of professionalism and expertise that you don't see very often. The photo arrays were impressive and the interviews transition smoothly. I didn't get a lot out of seeing the handwritten letters from Samantha Harman so often, but they're critical as the only evidence of a conscience at Abu Ghraib.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Standard Operating Procedure is, in fact, that evidence, and you can't help but admit that without these photographs we may never have known about Abu Ghraib or any of the interrogation methods used by U.S. military intelligence. You could argue that the photos literally changed the course of the war, and a study of them was a clever choice by Errol Morris. The questions they raise about war, leadership, gender, behavior, control, psychology, and culture are worthy of doctoral research, and Morris touches on them enough to satiate the intellectual viewer. Unfortunately, his main thesis - that blame should be placed on the U.S. government instead of the enlisted soldiers - is just a tad too extreme for me to embrace. His true political leanings aren't fully on display in the film (believe it or not), but speaking afterwards he didn't hold back, using words like "monarchy" and urging us to "impeach Bush."

In fact, at one point he could hardly contain himself in his chair, shouting and pointing at a questioner who inquired about any signs of remorse or apology from the interviewees. His face flushed with anger, Morris unloaded a tirade about how the soldiers were used as pawns; how Bush was reelected because he was able to blame everything on them; how the entire Abu Ghraib debacle was a big cover-up. He gradually calmed down and apologized, but he'd made his point: though they did some questionable things, the soldiers weren't evil and they weren't complicit, they were just cogs in the war machine. He concluded, "The crime was not the torture; the crime was the photography. And that's sick. And amazing." In other words, embarrassing the country by taking pictures of torture turned out to be a more punishable offense than the torture itself. That's a sad truth, but it's not given enough attention by Morris, who tries only to convince us only that the wrong people were held accountable.

Separating those two issues is splitting hairs, but the failure to do so prevents Standard Operating Procedure from reaching its full potential. For all the time spent studying photos and interviewing the key players, we should have learned something more about human nature, something more about the military mindset, something more about interrogation and intelligence and American culture. Instead, Standard Operating Procedure brings us right back to where we started: people were mistreated and nobody knows why. All anyone wants to do, including Errol Morris, is point fingers at the government.

REVIEW: Stop-Loss (A-)

Background: Nine years ago, Kimberly Peirce won a trophy case full of "Outstanding Directorial Debut" awards for Boys Don't Cry. Then she disappeared. When her younger brother enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and served in Iraq, she began developing a screenplay about soldiers going AWOL which eventually became Stop-Loss, named after the involuntary service extension policy created by Congress after the Vietnam War. Distributed by MTV Films (who most recently brought us How She Move), Stop-Loss was taken on a tour of college campuses and heavily marketed to teens, despite its justified R-rating. Many of the actors are familiar faces to those under 30: Ryan Phillippe (Breach), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout), Channing Tatum (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints), Rob Brown (Finding Forrester), and Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard), to name just a few. You'll also recognize Ciaran Hinds (There Will Be Blood) in already his third film of 2008, and you may know Alex Frost from Gus Van Sant's disturbing Elephant.

Synopsis: We meet a group of U.S. soldiers in Tikrit as they are routinely manning a checkpoint. A shootout leads to a chase that leads to an ambush, and the troops, led by Sgt. Brandon King (Phillippe), suffer several casualties. Tommy Burgess (Gordon-Levitt) loses his best friend, Steve Shriver (Tatum) gets trapped in a building, and Rico Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk) loses two limbs and his sight. Shaken, the unit arrives back home in Texas to celebrate, commemorate, and commiserate, but it only takes one night for us to know they aren't the same young men who left. Alcohol is the preferred method of therapy, but violence and shooting stuff in the woods suffice in between hangovers. King has finished his tours and thinks he's home to stay, but when the unit reports to base on Monday he learns he's been stop-lossed and is scheduled to go back to Iraq within a matter of weeks. Enraged, he takes off for D.C. with Shriver's girlfriend, Michelle (Abbie Cornish), where he hopes to cash in on a favor from a smiley senator. Along the way he struggles with his status as a fugitive and the terrors that haunt his mind. His buddies back home aren't faring much better - Tommy especially is having a difficult time handling his friend's death. When King realizes the senator can't help a fugitive, he's thrown for a loop. He visits Rico in the hospital and buys a Canadian passport just in case he decides to flee, but his guilt is weighing too heavily on him, and a visit from Shriver combined with an incident back home convinces King that his options are limited. He can't handle another tour, but is he willing to live in paranoia and guilt for the rest of his life?

I Loved:
+ When King visited Rico at the army hospital - one of the most important scenes in the movie.
+ Victor Rasuk as Rico Rodriguez. Raising Victor Vargas is one of my favorite movies of the decade, and I can't get enough of this guy. He was also great as Tony Alva in Lords of Dogtown, and I hope he gets some better roles in the future.

I Liked:
+ Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Channing Tatum, again. Gordon-Levitt has successfully erased the developing ("3rd Rock from the Sun") years of his career with solid roles in Brick, The Lookout, and this, and Tatum is 2/2 by my count after Saints. They'll both be in next year's G.I. Joe.
+ The first 10 minutes - that combat looked more believable to me than any other dramatizations that have come out of Iraq. No stupid jokes, no dog running across the alley to break the tension, and no easy heroics. Just pure, unflinching horror that set the tone for us to understand the characters the rest of the way.
+ Abbie Cornish as Michelle. As really the only female presence in the movie, she successfully and simultaneously added the important representation of the Army wife, girlfriend, sister, and fiancee. As an Australian, her Texan accent was pretty good, too. I'm positive I recognize her from something, but her only other credit that I've seen is A Good Year, and I don't think it's from that. I'm stumped.

I Disliked:
- The funeral scene - it was poorly written and too long.
- Rob Brown, who was discovered at an open casting call for Finding Forrester and hasn't done much since. Either he's in the wrong line of business or he's just unable to find solid roles.
- The epilogue text about Bush and stop-loss statistics. It wasn't underhanded or inappropriate, but it wasn't necessary, either. Anybody who's not troubled by what they've seen in the last two hours won't be convinced by some numbers, and anybody who wasn't already aware of stop-loss is probably too far out of it to understand anyway.

I Hated:
- "LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!" This song by Drowning Pool has now made its second appearance on screen in the last two months. Who writes something like this? Would you want to go to that concert? I must be the only one disturbed that this is becoming the unofficial theme song for U.S. troops and that Drowning Pool has been the most popular U.S.O. touring act for the last few years. Yes, it's catchy and I "get it," but...well, maybe I don't. "Killing music" isn't really my preferred genre.

Grade:
Writing - 8
Acting - 9
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 10
Music - 5
Significance - 5

Total: 46/50= 92% = A-

Last Word: At the five year mark of the war a couple of weeks ago, I lamented that Hollywood has poured out over 100 movies about Iraq and somehow still added little to the discussion. Consider Stop-Loss the counterargument. Sharply directed and superbly acted, it's the first important movie about the war in Iraq, and the only one I can recommend that isn't a documentary. It isn't perfect, and it's not The Deer Hunter or Coming Home, but it's a lot better than you would think an MTV-produced movie made for teenagers would be. Kimberly Peirce has absolutely nailed her sophomore effort and proven to those unconvinced that a woman can translate the horrors of war as well as a Clint Eastwood or Oliver Stone (and I'm hopeful that she'll help forge a path for female directors behind her). There are a few melodramatic moments and the writing isn't airtight, but the film packs an emotional punch because the characters are people that we know exist all around us, and will for the rest of our lives. Stop-Loss forces us to accept this reality as much as we don't want to. We can go back to our TVs and movie blogs and other distractions, but are we going to be ready when the real effects of the war start here? When hundreds of thousands of veterans are going through the same unexaggerated struggles as these characters? That question has been on my mind for about five years now, but Stop-Loss is the first mainstream movie (The War Tapes from '06 is a similar doc) that may wake up the public and start a dialogue about the future. Hopefully we can at least agree on the importance of that discussion in this polarized and partisan culture, and Kimberly Peirce has successfully attempted to initiate one.

REVIEW: Taxi to the Dark Side (B+)

Background: Over the last year or so, public interest in the use of torture has waned quite significantly. It made a brief appearance in 2007's terrible Rendition, but has otherwise been relegated to obscure Abu Ghraib references in pop culture. Alex Gibney, whose Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was one 2005's best documentaries, takes on the Bush administration's torture tactics with Taxi to the Dark Side. This was his second involvement on an Iraq documentary in 2007 - he was an executive producer on Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight. Both films received Oscar nominations for Best Documentary Feature.

Synopsis: Framing his attack on Bush around the story of innocent Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who was murdered by beatings in American detention in 2002, Gibney takes us on a torture tour through Bagram prison in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, and, of course, the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. Amazingly, the (now discharged) military personnel involved with Dilawar's death are all happy to share their stories on camera, no doubt to shed some guilt and blame their actions on "following orders." Over and over we see mutilated, naked bodies of detainees in various stages of "interrogation." A few reenactments are oddly interspersed, along with some interviews from authors and experts on torture, the Geneva Conventions, and human behavior. The rest of the 106 minutes are filled with predictable clips of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, et. al. defending torture by saying it can't be defined.

I Loved:
+ The interview with former FBI agent Jack Cloonan.
+ Some interesting statistics: 93% of detainees in U.S. military custody were "captured" for a bounty by tribal warlords and militia men. You can only assume that the majority of such detainees are likely innocent, but this unfortunately isn't further explored.

I Liked:
+ The interviews from the military MPs - straight from the source, like it should be.

I Disliked:
- The reenactments - maybe they were necessary (what are you going to do, actually torture someone?), but they just seemed strangely done.
- When Gibney went Michael Moorish at Guantanamo - catchy song with ironic lyrics while showing exaggerated examples of military attitude.
- Not hearing from any interviewees who could have defended the use of torture.

I Hated:
- The explicit male nudity, quite certainly the most I've ever seen in a film. And no, this isn't a "fairness" thing about male vs. female nudity on screen - it's a "dignity" thing. These men, if still alive, have been subject to enough humiliation already, haven't they? The blurred photos with which we are all (hopefully) familiar would have been appropriate and would have sufficed just fine in showing the horror of the situation.

Grade:
Writing - N/A
Acting - N/A
Production - 7
Emotional Impact - 9
Music - 5
Significance - 5

Total: 26/30= 87% = B+

Last Word: In addition to objectively painting a portrait of a given subject matter, a documentary is usually expected to be an exposé of said subject matter; a story you've never heard, or a story you've heard before, but not in "this way." Though engrossing and often gross, the real weakness of Taxi to the Dark Side is the fact that it's the same story told in pretty much the same way we've always heard: poor leadership within the U.S. administration led to poor decision-making on the ground, which led to poor detainees being treated poorly. Everyone's guilty but no one is to blame. This circuitous chaos is the subject matter and not the fault of Alex Gibney, but I hold him accountable for not telling me anything I didn't already know about it (and for thoroughly confusing me with years and locations). If there was ever an instance of preaching to the choir, this was it. Why did I expect more? Because Gibney's Enron was a triumph - as much as you knew about that scandal (which was probably not much), he laid out a linear, exacting argument that left no room for debate. As ironic as it seems to say so, Taxi to the Dark Side is not going to convince anyone of anything. You either think torture is bad, or you think torture is good. I really don't see a middle ground, and if you're in the second group you won't change your mind from what Gibney presents, you'll just shrug your shoulders. For a brief moment he actually starts to get creative as we hear from a former FBI interrogator whose interrogation techniques were effective and peaceful (as much as he exaggerated). That started to be convincing, so why did it end? And what about the 30 second insight into how torture has been embraced by the American public thanks to the likes of 24? That's an interesting place to go, but we're left with more polarizing soundbites from Bush. How about the flash-quick glimpse into the future repercussions from torture survivors? Gibney even pushes his own personal connection to torture to the credits. Where was that the whole time? The short of it is, by focusing on the same old details and using some pretty tired arguments, Gibney prevents his merely good work from achieving real excellence. Though it's a good excuse to get angry for a few hours, Taxi to the Dark Side can really only be recommended for anyone who has had their head in the sand for the last five years.

REVIEW: In The Valley of Elah (B)

Background: Remember this? Tommy Lee Jones is hoping you don't, but just to make sure he's followed it up with roles in The 3 Burials..., In the Valley of Elah, and the upcoming No Country For Old Men. The guy plays a craggly, suffering old sheriff/cop/marshal with a drawl like nobody else. Elah was written and directed by Oscar darling Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) and also stars Charlize Theron, who can never resist a chance to try to look ugly (Monster, North Country). This film, one of many this fall indirectly or directly involving the War in Iraq, was apparently inspired by a 2004 Playboy article (isn't that a punchline?) about Army soldier Richard Davis, who disappeared after returning from his first tour of duty in Iraq. With Elah, Haggis has now written three war screenplays in a row (Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima), and he apparently wrote this film with Clint Eastwood in mind for Jones's part. Eastwood can decently play a craggly, suffering old sheriff/cop/marshal, but he doesn't have a drawl and reportedly turned down the role because he thought it would be a little much to make 4 movies in 3 years with the same guy. Or maybe I just thought that would be a little much, despite the fact that it works for Scorsese & DiCaprio.

Synopsis: In 2004, scraggly Hank Deerfield (Jones) receives a phone call notifying him that his son, just back from Iraq, is AWOL. Like any concerned parent, he heads to the Army base from which his son vanished. There he meets his son's unit, none of whom can shed any light on his whereabouts. Jones files a missing persons report at the local police station, where rookie detective Emily Sanders (Theron) is stuck solving animal cruelty cases. After a rocky start, the two develop an awkward relationship after the stabbed, dismembered, charred, half-eaten body of Deerfield's son is found in a nearby field (and shown in detail). Deerfield, who happens to be a retired MP, works with Sanders to try to solve the mystery of his son's death. Suspicion is initially directed toward Mexican drug cartels before finding its way to Deerfield's closest army brethren, three of whom were last seen with him on the night of his death. Deerfield, now living out of a motel, studies corrupted cellphone videos his son took from Iraq, has harsh phone conversations with his wife (Sarandon), and discusses the fog of war with a number of soldiers. Confessions are made and retracted until you lose count (and your nerve), but eventually the case is closed and we all learn something new about being in war: it's bad.

I Loved:
+ Tommy Lee Jones - excellent in balancing Deerfield's anger, frustration, and forgiveness.

I Liked:
+ The subtle musical score.
+ The symbolism behind the picture Deerfield's son took with his cellphone.

I Disliked:
- The dragging pace of the film - this could have been 20 minutes shorter and still kept its meaning.
- The gloomy gray throughout 90% of the scenes - this isn't Gotham, and the emotional effect is unrealistic and unnecessary in a film that's already so depressing.

I Hated:
- The exaggerated chauvinism within the police department - that may be based on her reality, but it was annoying, repetitive, and added little to the story.
- The cellphone video quality - I understand it's corrupted, and it's from a cellphone, but the audio static drove me crazy.
- The guy sitting behind me in the theater, who for 10 minutes not only jingled his change in his pocket but actually rubbed the coins together, making an incredibly grating sound. By my estimate, he had 13 pennies, 6 nickels, 8 dimes, and 6 quarters. Thanks for taking me out of the most important part of the movie...

Grade:
Writing - 8
Acting - 9
Production - 7
Emotional Impact - 9
Music - 5
Significance - 5

Total: 43/50= 86% = B

Last Word: Though framing its anti-war argument around the original story of a veteran's mysterious disappearance back at home, In The Valley of Elah doesn't really rise above other movies involving Iraq. Its best parts are because of the solid acting and some of Haggis's writing, but the fundamental lesson - that sending innocent boys to war is like sending David up against Goliath, could probably have been told in a more powerful way. I think this film just got away from Haggis as he spent way too much time on the dull details of a murder case. Instead of adapting the story of Richard Davis and trying to teach a lesson on war, he could have come up with a much better and original plot with more interesting characters. Oh well, maybe somebody else will. In the meantime, it's nice to see Tommy Lee Jones back doing what no one else can: being old and scraggly with a drawl.