billcr12 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.

LydiaOLydia I'm sorry, but I'm left of Lenin liberal. I am against the war and how it is propagated, and am aghast at the heavy handed, insensitive tactics and attitude of the US soldiers that I've witnessed in Iraq.however, this movie doesn't depict that. Rather, it represents the US soldier as a one dimensional cartoon, stupid beyond stupid. The caricature can only appeal to ardent anti-Americans (as we have seen in these comments) and utterly repel people who might otherwise have an open mind (as we've also seen in these comments). One soldier actually says "Waxing hajis is like stepping on cockroaches." I'm sorry - that simply does not happen and has not happened. The Americans are a lot of things, but cold blooded psychopaths is not one of them. However, the movie doesn't stop there - it turns them into criminal pedophile rapists too.If the acting and script were much much much better than they are, the film might just pass for insightful satire - much like Apocalypse now "overdid" the Vietnam war to draw attention to its absurdities and its effects on the psyche of all involved. However, this movie fails miserably in these aims. The actors are awful - just awful. They don't resemble US soldiers in physical appearance or mannerisms. Each one screams "low budget, effeminate Hollywood extra." It doesn't help that the script turns them into the most cardboard of caricatures. Honestly, at some point I expected them to start eating kittens.The political message it tries to make is needed and all in all decent. However, the acting stinks and the script is poorly written so that it just comes across as so very staged and fake.This movie has been deservedly forgotten. "Three Kings", which is about the first Persian gulf war, ironically is still the best movie as of this writing about the second Persian gulf war even though the second of course started years after "three kings" was made. Such is the paucity on quality film on the Iraq War (and, before you think anything, I thought "Hurt Locker" was pretty awful too).

dunmore_ego Iraq calls America The Great Satan.REDACTED shows us why. Written and directed by Brian de Palma, we follow a small cadre of American troops for a few explosive havoc days of rape and murder in Samara, Iraq. Based on a real account of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Samara girl, I researched the web for this particular incident... and ended up reading dozens of other cases.I stopped searching. Nothing unique about this movie's incident. It had become common practice with the ignorant thugs who had become the lowest swine on the planet - the Amerikan Military. (An Iraqi soldier comments that REDACTED shows one rape - while he has witnessed thousands.) ...And the Great Satan coalesces, laughing worms.American Military, like mongrels off their leashes, create more terrorism towards Iraqis than the other way 'round. And - at the risk of sounding like a broken record - one man bears the brunt of this blame. George W. Bush.Film aims so hard at being "reality TV" (by being lensed through various security cams, embedded reporter footage, hidden terrorist cams, cellphone video, online wives' videos, Arabic website footage, etc. - there are no actual "movie camera" master shots and cutaways), that the "natural" acting is anything BUT.The first action vignette is beautifully staged, as soldiers fight to keep their eyes open at a dull checkpoint, while Handel's Sarabande in D minor lulls us into a false sense of quietude. De Palma plays this scene like a French documentary, showing us the complications at just this one checkpoint. As the American troops describe how they've set up extensive Iraqi signage outlining checkpoint procedures, a French narrator tells us that studies show over half of Iraqis are illiterate; which means most of them cannot read the instructions and have no idea of checkpoint protocol at the Terrorist Amerikan Checkpoints.After nothing happening all day, all hell breaks loose when a car doesn't stop at its prescribed point. A pregnant woman is killed, and we see the massacre through the eyes of a non-American news report.Removing us from provincial American reportage enables us to perceive the incident with clearer vision; then de Palma drops us back into the ignorant provincialism of the American grunt camp; utterly remorseless and flippant, they refuse to comprehend how other cultures might misinterpret their hand signals or speech, blaming the driver for the massacre.Many would argue that these men are not representative of American soldiers. But if SOME soldiers are like this, it means those "some" are representing America. REDACTED raises the horrifying reality that these "some" are not the exception - they are the rule. We would know this if the information dribble from war zones was not being "redacted" by the duplicitous government (whole pages, lines and incriminating evidence obscured or removed from reports before being released to the public). Like "Rendition" or "Enhanced Interrogation," Redacted is merely another Great Amerikan Euphemism.The swinish Bushies will protest, "It's only a movie!" But even if we negate the atrocities these soldiers perpetrate, the checkpoints in that foreign land are a reality - CAUSING more violence and death than they curb (which Bush and his cabbagehead general, Petraeus, and puppetfool Bremer, refuse to acknowledge). "Over a 24-month period, U.S. troops killed 2,000 Iraqis at checkpoints. 60 were confirmed insurgents. No U.S. soldiers were charged in any of these incidents."The stars of REDACTED are all unknowns, so when the hard bigotry comes, we accept it: "nuke 'em all... scorched earth... ragheads... dwarf Ali Babas..." every insult you've ever heard is compacted into this movie.The Amerikan Military and Propaganda Government have dehumanized the Iraqis so morbidly that American grunts feel entitled to these objects as "spoils of war"; premeditating and performing the rape and murder of the 15-year-old girl was just another rowdy frat night for the rapists, even though some of the troop protested - but not enough to actually STOP the incident.Grunts have been indoctrinated to believe they are performing a FAVOR for Iraq by "overthrowing Saddam, bringing democracy to them - and not even a thank you!" Yet the fact that their Christian feet are on Islamic soil only increases the hostility - an Arab religious tenet is to keep non-Islamic feet off their "holy" land. but George W. Bush will never "get" it.As revenge for the 15-year-old girl, a soldier is kidnapped and beheaded by Iraqis. But now de Palma shows us the American version of this news, and we see exactly how deluded and in denial the American government keeps itself, as a military spokesman talks of the "barbaric and brutal nature of the terrorists and their complete disregard for human life." And though one soldier wants to bring charges against his own men, the first thing that comes into question in American courts is the sanity of the soldier bringing the charges. The frustration of this insular system of denial and protectionism will make your head swell and smoke come out your ears.Ironically, de Palma's movie ends with redactions that the movie studios made before release, in a last brutal segment called "Collateral Damage - Actual pictures from the Iraq War." We do not see every picture de Palma intended us to see. But we see enough: children with burned skin, screaming. Families holding their heads, screaming, while their child lies slaughtered on the ground; a man cradling his naked son, covered in blood; splotches of blood all over a screaming child's dress; a dead woman with eyes wide open, lying in a pool of blood, her limbs removed. This last picture is apparently the Samara girl.And only one question raises its ugly, swollen weasel head: When will The Great Satan, George W. Bush, be brought to justice?

John-S362 I had to watch Redacted as i watched every footage referred as documentaries or inspired of war. From a strict movie point of view, nice attempt to show true combat nature and i respect someone taking the means to show his opinion.On the other hand,as an Afghanistan combat vet, the in-accuracy of both tactical and psychological make-up just does not add up.The movie is unfair for everyone, it does not represent truly the soldiers devotion to a mission and civilians courage to live through it.The type of soldiers flashed in the movie is the 0.5% that makes 95% of the combat errors that cost so much for everyone, the movie flashes you corpses,blood,sand,pain and mindless actions. I expected before the end at least something positive done by U.S troops, nope, which proves me that the movie is driven by a personal dislike of military action no matter the cause.But like i said , i respect that,i just wish someone like De Palma would be brilliant enough to at least show that good is also made over there. The last spree of images is quite supporting my point, no images of soldiers actually suffering from what they are trying to accomplish. I still recommend someone to watch it as cultural matter as to see how can someone express his vision of a conflict yet he never really faced himself... There is better movies than this one to represent the real stakes and toll of modern conflicts.