Combat Obscura

With its scattered and non-narrative storytelling, it is definitely not for those viewers who aren't typically drawn to documentaries.

BUT if you're a doc lover, this one is amazing. It is insightful, honest, brutal, and-at times-truly difficult to watch due to the graphic content. I had a visceral reaction to this film; I was angry and saddened by the behavior of these young men, while at the same time experiencing their fear and loneliness.

Not to get too literary about a movie, but it reminded me of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Similarly to the idea of the novel, this doc shows the stretches of boredom and also the bursts of excitement; the pride of protecting people and also the lack of humanity from over-exposure to violence; the need to fight for a larger cause and also the misunderstanding of other cultures.

I highly recommend!!!

WOW!! This was bad. There was more video of the ground than anything else. The movie is incoherent with no particular point. For Mike's next movie I willstart a go fund me to hire him a sound engineer. The sound goes from 0 to 10 and up and down the entire 70 minutes. I had to constantly adjust he volume as I watched. It really is a bad movie. It the point is o show snapshots of war there are better movies of random soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan on YouTube. Generally movies have a story to tell. This movie is very disjointed with no flow, nothing to follow. Mike doesn't even engage us with his unit. I give this a hard pass.

Patchwork footage of fighting the Taliban and trying to win villagers' hearts and minds. Principally unfocused.

Screenplay...................................... 3 / 10 Interviews........................................ 3 Visuals................................................ 6 Sound................................................... 7 Editing................................................ 4 Timeless Utility................................. 5 Total.................................................... 28 / 60 ~= 4.7 (rounded to 6) Verdict................................................. Passable for a general audience.

Many people who are rating this, came into expecting a well directed, produced, and polished movie. This is not that, it was not meant to be that. This is the true accounts and events of these corpsmen. This is meant to display there day to day life, not all the stuff everyone says about the military and marine corps. At the end of the day this is a job, and this shows us the job that they have on deployment. It also shows us joe they deal with war, and how they act. This gives incredible insight to what actually happens and is experienced on deployment. The military is not full of perfect men, as one point it was talked about during this film. It captures the faults and the seemingly unwarranted behavior they display. This was recorded by a corpsman and so of course he's not going to know how to create and capture every thing like a paid cameraman. This is a great documentary of reality.

It shows true segments of wartime experience and also what young people who we send to war sometime act like. However, the negative is what naysayers key on. Fact is, what sometimes is said and done in that situation doesn't translate well to the civilian world out of context. The language, horseplay, and interaction with civilians and the enemy are all by products of war. It is harsh, ugly and dark. Our Marines are just trying to survive in an impossible situation not of their own making. It is what it is.