Redacted (2007)

Millions of people were very angry with regards to the Iraq war, although after watching Redacted, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s none more so than Brian De Palma. Redacted is a fictional dramatization focusing on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings in Iraq, in which U.S Army soldiers raped and murdered an Iraqi girl, as well as killing her family. De Palma’s film caused no end of controversy in the U.S.A, mainly for portraying the U.S Army in a negative light, and not covering the whole story in the film (although it’s not difficult for anyone to look up what happened to the soldiers involved after the events of the film). Some of the criticisms of the film are baffling; it seems illogical that audiences would tarnish the entire army with the same brush after the actions of a few soldiers, but at the same time this is far from the only incident of controversy surrounding soldiers in Iraq. The main issues with De Palma’s film lie with the approach he takes; the story is told through a video diary taken by a solider, as well as news broadcasts, CCTV footage, and mocked up videos posted on extremist websites. Although the central line of the film never wavers, it does result in a bit of a mess by somewhat removing the audience from the true horror of the story. De Palma should be credited for not shying away from the brutality however, the sequence central to the story is truly appalling and a very difficult watch as it understandably should be. What Redacted ends up looking like is a series of fragments and footage, which may have been more effective had it been real. Admittedly had De Palma somehow managed to get his hands on any of that there’s no doubt that itself would have been redacted, so it’s certainly a triumph that the story itself was brought to the screen, but a shame that it couldn’t be more cohesive and disciplined in its deployment. 6.0/10