I had quite a hard time finding this movie, when i heard, that it was finished. when i finally found it, i knew why. Now, under a new U.S. government, it is easy to say "mistakes have been made, we are doing a much better job now, and we can talk about what went wrong". But under the bush era, in America, this must haven been much more difficult. So a big political "thumbs up" for the director for picking up the controversial issue at that time. And I think, politically he did not do a bad job.
The movie follows a group of marines, terrorists and families through an incident some months after the battle OF haditha. It does so sometimes at the cost of the tempo, but does in my opinion a really good and fair job. not unlike bloody Sunday (the historical one and the 2002 movie) the situation is a ticking bomb, with the terrorists or freedom fighters (depends on the perspective) setting something up, the military "triggering" it, the civil population suffering the consequences and the terrorists ultimately winning the battle by having won more forces than they lost. This surely is an old story, but still is a reality. But where the art of "realistic" film-making, if it fails, might make you a part of this downward spiral, this movie succeeds in telling you the whole story. This movie doesn't point fingers at those who were directly involved in the incident. It simply tells how people on either side of both, the trigger and the violent struggle, got into the situation where they did what they did. So yes, this is a very political motivated movie. But not in the sense, that it prefers one political view over the other, but in the sense, that it shows quite realistic what happens to people that have to suffer the consequences (not only the civilians). And in the end, the movie does point fingers at people. But not at those who were involved in what "really" happened, but at those who orchestrated the conditions in which things like this can happen.
This movie tells a story that is difficult to be told. And in my opinion it does a really good job in that. For a really great MOVIE, of course, there are a lot of things missing. But i think, it wasn't the purpose of this movie to be a great movie, it was the purpose to tell a story. And in my opinion, the story is very well told. Good Movie.
The movie follows a group of marines, terrorists and families through an incident some months after the battle OF haditha. It does so sometimes at the cost of the tempo, but does in my opinion a really good and fair job. not unlike bloody Sunday (the historical one and the 2002 movie) the situation is a ticking bomb, with the terrorists or freedom fighters (depends on the perspective) setting something up, the military "triggering" it, the civil population suffering the consequences and the terrorists ultimately winning the battle by having won more forces than they lost. This surely is an old story, but still is a reality. But where the art of "realistic" film-making, if it fails, might make you a part of this downward spiral, this movie succeeds in telling you the whole story. This movie doesn't point fingers at those who were directly involved in the incident. It simply tells how people on either side of both, the trigger and the violent struggle, got into the situation where they did what they did. So yes, this is a very political motivated movie. But not in the sense, that it prefers one political view over the other, but in the sense, that it shows quite realistic what happens to people that have to suffer the consequences (not only the civilians). And in the end, the movie does point fingers at people. But not at those who were involved in what "really" happened, but at those who orchestrated the conditions in which things like this can happen.
This movie tells a story that is difficult to be told. And in my opinion it does a really good job in that. For a really great MOVIE, of course, there are a lot of things missing. But i think, it wasn't the purpose of this movie to be a great movie, it was the purpose to tell a story. And in my opinion, the story is very well told. Good Movie.
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