The first must-see film of the year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

An interesting documentary about one of the few mainstream reporters to live in Iraq near-continuously since before the American invasion and gained early acclaim due to his willingness to establish contacts with the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi insurgency and early days of the Islamic State. Frankly, many scenes are obscene, and I do not recommend anyone of a nervous disposition to watch this film. It is, however, an insight into the brutality of warfare up close which I don't recall seeing in any mainstream film release. What it doesn't do is give much insight on 'Al-Zarqawi'. It is more of a personal account of his difficult time. A visceral, harrowing distillation of the reporter's seven years on the front line.

To understand war, we have to experience it as a soldier. Michael Ware is that soldier, and we join him every step of the way. Whilist this movie is gory and bloody (real corpses and stuff) and quite possibly the most disturbing movie I've seen, it really captures the essence of war. Months ago, you would have found me making Jihad and Muslim jokes (not to be offensive; I respect their religion and understand it's all about peace), now, I feel bad for making those jokes; I never understood terrorists in general or what they were capable of, until I saw this movie. If you want to understand war yourself, you have to first put yourself in the eyes of a soldier and their shoes. This movie does just that.

It starts as something we have already seen from Iraq. One side shoots, another shoots back, people die. This time you don't get to view this from a comfortable distance. This time you see the dirty side of the war. Although the insurgents are bad guys here, they are still human beings. Yes, sure, it's the war and the rule of the game is shoot to kill. But when the shooting stops you expect people to revert back to normal. What you will witness is a lack of empathy for another human being. And that's the most scary part of the documentary. The insurgent dies because of the brain injury, but the living soldiers will have to live with it for the rest of their lives, unless they have brain injuries themselves(no pun intended). That's something for the whole humanity to observe and learn.

It's a little disingenuous to claim that 'Al-Zarqawi' is a star in this documentary as if the creator was his 'go to guy'. I got no particular feeling of this at all, despite claims made during the documentary. I won't go into why, it would ruin the story. Despite these claims, it is a pretty good documentary and worth a watch for the sheer nakedness of the war displayed in all it's horror. Why we have censorship in countries is beyond me. War is war and should never be taken lightly. The age of some of these soldiers is unbelievable and the things and decisions they are exposed to on a daily basis is horrendous that it's really no surprise when they come back and develop PTSD.