Rob Devaney, Kel O'Neill, Mike Figueroa and Izzy Diaz
Brian De Palma's scandal over the war in Iraq is tangible in "Redacted," his novelized telling of the real world rape and execution of a adolescent girl by U.S. soldiers.
For sure this is a story that masses have to know about, if they didn't know it already. His method, however, inclines to be gimmicky and ready-made.
The writer-director strays from his usually conventionalized aesthetic with this stripped medley of false footage: a soldier's handheld video journal, a French duo's sepia-toned documentary film, TV news pieces and online video recording from both a terrorist Web site and the web blog of an Army man's wife.
His target, naturally, is that we are not receiving a entire image of the war from the mainstream media. But by presenting us absolutely everything from countless views, it looks like De Palma is beating us over the head. Taking this broke up approach also lags the tempo of the story; just when one part of the story gets rolling, we get jerked in another direction.
Ironically, "Redacted" could have been more compelling if De Palma had redacted himself a little if he had not been so open, if he'd given us sufficiency credit to think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions about these men and the picks they did. (The graphical ending, a series of pictures of the bloodied bodies of murdered Iraqi civilians, serves as a harrowing exclamation mark. Then once again, what else would you anticipate? This isn't precisely a film maker who's made his name on niceness.)
That the anonymous cast members generally look stiff and self-aware, as if they are playing an off-Broadway act on movie, adds to the sensation that we're watching something that's evidently staged and comes through tougher to become really immersed.
In revisiting much of the same soil as his 1989 Vietnam picture "Casualties of War," De Palma introduces the time-tested types of the genre. Inside this unit of soldiers at a checkpoint in Samarra, there's the studious Blix (Kel O'Neil); the ardent Salazar (Izzy Diaz), who desires the video he shoots will get him into movie school; McCoy (Rob Devaney), the group's conscience; the nourished country boy Rush (Daniel Stewart Sherman); and the wild card, Flake (Patrick Carroll). Ty Jones plays their tough-talking police sergeant.
There are some moments of genuine stress a deadly IED attack, a shot in which a few Iraqis in a rush fail to stop their automobile at the checkpoint with horrible outcomes. But a lot of "Redacted" consists of teasing banter and waiting for the unavoidable midnight bust of a family's domicile where a couple of suspected terrorists live.
Far from home and fired by a life-threatening mix alcohol and machismo, the soldiers burst in, shooting whosoever they delight and taking what they consider is theirs. A few of them attempt to stop it. Other people sit lazily by and watch. Regardless, they finish up turning on each other and tearing each other apart, and none of them is the same man he was upon coming in Iraq. It is not a new in view, but one that De Palma draws acutely.
In real world, a 14-year-old girl was raped and murdered in March 2006 in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad; her parents and sis were also murdered in the assault. 4 U.S. soldiers already have been condemned for the crime, a 5th has pleaded innocent and is awaiting trial.
De Palma's clear love for the subject, and for getting the truth out, makes you wish he'd attempted a real documentary film instead.
"Redacted," a Magnolia Pictures release, is rated R for strong disturbing violent content including a rape, pervasive language and some sexual references/images. Running time: 90 minutes. Two stars out of four.
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