So much average

Excellent but underrated film

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

On the 12th of March 2006 five American soldiers of the 101st Airborne walked in to a house outside the village of Yusufiyah in Iraq and murdered a mother , a father and a six year old child . After this they took turns to rape the fourteen year old daughter before killing her . This crime became known The Mumudiya Killings . This shocking crime was later turned in to a compelling book by Jim Frederick entitled Black Hearts in 2010 . Three years prior to this Brian DePalma made a highly fictionalised account called REDACTED DePalma doesn't seem an obvious choice for this type of story since he has a highly idiosyncratic camera style . That said he did make CASUALTIES OF WAR which was thematically very similar to this REDACTED though be it set in Vietnam rather than Iraq . The director's cinematic style is entirely different from what we've been used to for many years . Here instead of a camera voyeuristic moving around we have a cinema verite style complete with internet clips and a cast involving unknown actors ad-libbing The unfortunate thing is that DePalma seems way out of his depth . He fails to develop the story in anyway . Reading the Frederick's book you're aware of the brutality B Company 501st Infanrty Regiment 101st Airborne Division were experiencing with a casualty rate similar to that experienced during the Second World War . Regardless of your opinion of the war ( I was against it ) it is essential reading for the often incomprehensible nature of an insurgency conflict . REDACTED fails to give anything about the background or the context of what might have led to this type of atrocity against innocent civilians . The platoon in question see one of their comrades killed but apart from that there's no real inciting incident , there's no real character motivation and that's the fundamental failing of the film The second major failing is that the actors are fairly dreadful but I should qualify this by saying it's almost certainly not their fault because their characters have the depth of rice paper . None of this is helped by having to spontaneously spout dialogue off the top of their heads . Make no mistake you can see DePalma shouting through a loudhailer" okay you're a soldier in Iraq so pretend you're in a war-zone and ... ACTION " . This type of acting style might work in British social dramas but not in a plot driven American war film and it shows This is a very sensitive , harrowing subject matter for a film and it deserves some reverence to say the least. It's almost certain if this film is to go by that DePalma was against the war in Iraq and it's perhaps not surprising that many people who have praised REDACTED are similarly against the invasion. Regardless of my own politics I can only comment on it as a movie fan and this is a fairly poor film . One can only hope that if Hollywood get round to adapting Black Hearts they can do the full story justice for the sake of fourteen year old Abeer Qasim Hamza and her family in a conflict that saw aid workers being decapitated on the internet by insurgents

Redacted is a brutal and realistic war drama from director Brian De Palma. Done in a documentary style; it reminded me of The Hurt Locker, with mostly hand held camera shots. The controversy surrounding the film is due to the fact that it is loosely based on the rape of a girl by a group of American soldiers in Iraq in 2006. The criticism stems from De Palma not adding the outcome of the jail sentences of the guilty in real life. The studio claims that it was done for legal reasons and they clearly state that it is a work of fiction. Aside from the politics, I found Redacted to be a better than average war movie. It is bloody and violent and the men in uniform are shown with all of the difficult choices they must make under horrific circumstances. Ignore the loud mouths like Bill O ' Reilly, another tough guy, like Hannity and Limbaugh, who never actually were in the military. Thank You, Mr. De Palma, for standing by your work.

Normally I would not give a bad review, as my opinion, well is my opinion! But when I read that an extremist murdered two unarmed servicemen on a bus because he thought this movie was true gave me cause to change my mind. This movie left me wishing there was something better to waste my time on, like watching paint dry. If you are a hater of the armed services or like trash fiction movies than go see this.But It was not worth the life of two service men in Germany. Not sure what the where trying to achieve, this movie should have been a casualty of war..... Normally I would not give a bad review, as my opinion, well is my opinion! But when I read that an extremist murdered two unarmed servicemen on a bus because he thought this movie was true gave me cause to change my mind. This movie left me wishing there was something better to waste my time on, like watching paint dry. If you are a hater of the armed services or like trash fiction movies than go see this.But It was not worth the life of two service men in Germany. Not sure what the where trying to achieve, this movie should have been a casualty of war.....Other reviewers have commented about the personal agenda of the writers/directors. I have no use for a movie that reminds me of the old Nazi & Russia propaganda movies of WWII.

I just finished watching this film and reading some of the reviews, it's amazing how clueless people can be.I think a film such as this could very well be real, or at least the premise of the film be based on an actual event.It's sad to see how principals, morality and discipline can go right out the window under certain situations.It is also sad that our government would probably go to the same extremes depicted in the film to cover up these same events. How can these people sleep at night, let alone live with themselves.The acting wasn't the greatest, but, I don't think Mr. DePalma had that in mind when casting this film. He wanted something like a video diary of actual soldiers in an awful situation and the horrendous outcome.It seems that in wars that occur in places like this, Bosnia, etc., it's the children that suffer.