Heval

Rarely does a documentary manage to say so little with so much self-importance. This film treats its audience not as thoughtful participants but as passive receptacles for recycled ideas, poorly organized facts, and long-winded, empty pontificating.

From the start, the documentary mistakes footage for storytelling. It drags the viewer through an endless swamp of aimless interviews, irrelevant archival clips, and sluggish, self-congratulatory narration. It neither informs, nor enlightens, nor provokes - it simply exists, like a lecture no one asked for, delivered by someone who forgot their own point halfway through.

The structure is nonexistent. Scenes tumble into one another with no rhythm, no escalation, no argument. At best, it's lazy; at worst, it's insulting. By the end, it's unclear what the filmmakers were trying to prove - or if they even cared to.

Visually, it's a parade of uninspired shots: endless slow zooms on dusty documents, talking heads framed with all the imagination of a local news broadcast, and enough stock footage to make a PowerPoint presentation blush. Every stylistic choice feels less like a decision and more like a surrender.

Most damning of all, the documentary lacks the courage to confront its own subject matter. It dances around controversy without ever offering insight, as if terrified of alienating anyone or, worse, forcing the audience to think. It plays it safe, but mistakes safety for sophistication.

By the end, the only real mystery left is how this project was ever greenlit in the first place.

Let this man come home to his beloved home and city of l.a. Usa, let him relax and mend his mental wounds, and the best way for him to do that is to go back into the hollywood studios to act out!!! Michael enright is a true british american hero that have fought what most of the world thinks is evil, and when the evil is done then its a deed to do by the american government to apprais their efforts. As jim morisson declaimed over and over again; ''you cannot petition the lord with prayers'' , therefore let me do the petition mr.president for mr enright, give him a green card ,man, cause he helped erase the world from ''the plague of the dark shrouds'', and even document it... well that seems to be my political citationistic digression, back to reviewing

its a film that shows the worst and the best in humanity, the makers have had a lot of material to put together, it lacks some attacks towards the political machinery of washington d.c., just to get clarity on the foreign fighters standpoint.

Its also a film about the alfa males of the world, and an alfa sam versus an alfa brit( that lived 30 years in the usa as an actor on a tourist visa, shame on him for that) nagging on each other what the personal purposes of the fighting was.

Its also a documentary that supports the kurdish people to be kurdish, and their fight for their own state and territory, and its a film that points a finger towards the infamous diplomatic curtain, aka u.s./turkish relations( turks hates the kurds and vice verca)

so if youve had thoughts on the isis, daesh or the islamic caliphate and their evil deeds done by foreign hudlums becoming the reapers of the middle east, this is a documentary to watch.

I, the grumpy old man, had to take a view of the screen at moments, and felt the claw of sadness of the deaths and lost destiny of the people living in the wasps nest called middle east. A thumbs up for the production, good editing and storytelling, and the score dwelling underneath scores, so a big recommend.

When this documentary started, I'm not going to lie, I didn't take to Michael Enright. Being ex-military myself for over 20 years (and having served in some scary places) I knew people like him. Billy Bulls**tters. If you've been to Timbuktu, he's been to Timbukthree, Been to Tenerife? He's been to Eleven-erife. But I think that was the point at the start of the documentary.

The first half puts that doubt in your mind that he's a Walter Mitty. That he's making a lot of it up. Then the detractors speak (one US ex-soldier in particular) to further reinforce that opinion.

But bear with it. It does a whole 180 degree spin. What unfolds proves he has seen things many will never see and he suffers as a consequence. The head-cam footage is terrifying and horrific. One interaction following an ISIS attack almost breaks him and genuinely had me in pieces.

Was he lied to by officials (I'll not give any more away)? I don't know. It's in his interest to lie about this, but he seems reasonably credible. What I do know (and again I'll not spoil things but if you know anything about the Kurds you'll know already), betrayal features highly here. Regardless of your politics, what happens sticks in the craw and makes you feel guilty and embarrassed. He can't go back to the UK (similar fighters against ISIS have been prosecuted) and returning the US seems a futile dream. Sobering stuff.

This is one of the best documentaries I've seen in years. I have followed the Rojava Revolution and the Syrian part of the war against ISIS for some time and I somehow missed so much of this story. The film was absolutely gripping and I didn't want it to end.

I would've liked a bit more of an explanation of the ideology (Democratic Confederalism) of the YPG/YPJ. The many 1 star ratings without reviews are almost invariably from Turkish nationalists who reflexively call any political will of Kurdish people "terrorism". Props to the filmmakers for not mentioning the bogus accusations of "terrorism" that regional state powers levy against the Kurdish, Assyrian, and Arabic people struggling for grassroots democracy, women's freedom, pluralism, and ecology until the very end. Most articles and films lead with this and have a bias towards states, no matter how authoritarian, over autonomous administrations, no matter how genuinely democratic.

This film doesn't get too political and people from all sides of the political compass in the US will get something out of it. Same for people who don't like politics or war movies...the story is just compelling, period.

Hypocrisy of these turks are just is just unbelievable. Its not their fault since thats what happens if you are raised with propoganda. Very grateful for your help with isis.