The two Iraq-related movies I most wanted to see this Movie Season were "In The Valley of Elah" and "Redacted". "Elah" was excellent, and appropriately disturbing. We saw "Redacted" last night. I was also interested in this because, as I mentioned here, I used to know Brian De Palma, sometimes hung out with him, so I keep an eye on his work.
Redacted was the most disappointing, over-rated movie I have seen in long, long time.
I was actually scared to see this movie. It's based on a true story: when some American soldiers gang-raped and murdered a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and murdered several of her family members in an attempt to cover their crime. Brian De Palma plus rape plus Iraq? I thought it might be too violent for me, too graphic, too brutal.
I needn't have worried. Either De Palma purposely kept his penchant for graphic on-screen violence under wraps or he's lost his touch. Although the incident it portrays is horrendous, the movie itself is not particularly disturbing.
It's also not well written, well acted or compelling to watched. I was shocked at how juvenile and stilted the dialogue sounds. Everyone is either a stock character or a billboard for ideas De Palma wanted to work in. Some of it was downright silly.
I was also very bothered by De Palma's attempts at "balance", portraying the violence from all sides as equally wrong.
If another country invaded New York City or Los Angeles, set up bases and checkpoints, held Americans under constant guard, harassed them with random humiliations and violence, and a few enterprising New Yorkers or Angelenos managed to pick off a few of the invaders with guns or bombs, would those Americans be terrorists, too? No. They would be hailed as heroes. Their violence would, to most people, be justified.
Whatever violence the Iraqi so-called insurgents do to Americans, it's terrible for the soldiers and their families, but it's the US' fault for being in Iraq in the first place.
There's no balance here. There was an invasion, now there's an occupation. The people trying to expel the invaders are not the moral equivalents of the invaders themselves.
Apparently, for De Palma, this balance extends even to the peace movement. A fictional anti-war website in which a peace protester rants about wanting to torture American soldiers is disgusting and offensive to me. If there are people in the peace movement like that, I've never met one.
Redacted made a huge buzz at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, as its producers (Canadians Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl) had some trouble getting certain images past their distributor. The subject matter and De Palma's name fed the hype.
But I was disappointed to find it was only hype, and not much else.
Movie Season - that stretch of time between the World Series and Opening Day - is coming to a close. This year I'm going to post a wrap-up of all the movies we saw, using my own personal rating system. It's sure to offend some people, and hopefully we'll have some fun with it, too.
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