| Redacted | 
 enlarge | Director: Brian De Palma
Actors: Kel O'neill, Mike Figueroa, Bridget Barkan, Patrick Carroll, Ty Jones
Studio: Magnolia
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $2.25
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Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 15938
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MAGD10122D
UPC: 876964001229
EAN: 0876964001229
ASIN: B000YDOOSM
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: February 19, 2008
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Product Description
Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 11/25/2008 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
Brian De Palma's ferocious Redacted is one of a number of cinematic protests against the Iraq War and the withholding of information and images about the war from the U.S. public. But it is also shares De Palma's perennial interest in the relationship between film and violence, a relationship that has changed significantly in the real world because of the Internet, cable news, and the ubiquity of camcorders on the ground in Iraq. In a world more intent than ever on watching everything, De Palma has fashioned Redacted to look like a daisy chain of found footage taken from disparate sources. These include an American soldier's video journal (which, not insignificantly, is also supposed to be that soldier's audition piece for film school), a French documentary, a security camera at the edge of an army compound, and streaming video online from insurgents and military families alike. Taken together, Redacted recreates the kind of Iraq War scenes we've heard about for years: soldiers kidnapped or felled by booby traps, pregnant women and children shot by American guards at military checkpoints because Iraqi drivers misunderstand orders, etc. With mood and setting firmly established, Redacted then tells the story of an atrocity ripped from headlines in 2006: the rape and murder of an Iraqi teen, as well as the murder of her family, by American soldiers who then proceed to cover up their crime. Meanwhile, other soldiers, well-meaning witnesses to what happened, implode with doubt and uncertainty about what to do. In a way, Redacted is really about the paralysis of ordinary Americans confronted by the horror of our collective misjudgment about Iraq. It's a work of fiction using actors, meaning that De Palma employs a verisimilitude which sometimes doesn't sit well with anyone who has seen a lot of Iraq War documentaries featuring real troops and real Iraqis. But De Palma is trying to do something very difficult, i.e., make the case that in war, truth really is the first casualty. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 A harrowing, powerful, and completely misunderstood film November 23, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Redacted" is a daring, audacious film from director Brian De Palma. It has been called everything from "anti-American", to "traitorous", and just about everything in between. Michael Medved blasted it, and Bill O'Reilly even went so far as to call for people to boycott it. However, for those with an open mind, "Redacted" is a powerful piece of filmmaking that defies what is constituted as "journalism", to show us the simple realities of what happens when young men, of ANY nationality, are forced into hostile situations, and witness unspeakable acts of violence.
Those that view it as "anti-American" are missing the film's point. While de Palma did choose to "center" the picture around a horrific event (the rape and murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and her entire family at the hands of American GI's), the film goes through great lengths to show HOW the soldiers were put in the mindset to carry out their unspeakable crimes. From manning a checkpoint, which carries great psychological stress, to witnessing a comrade get obliterated with an enemy IED, all these events are seen through the eyes of the soldiers.
Furthermore, the fact that these are (for the most part) all young men, make these events all the more impressionistic on their psyches. So when two of the soldiers propose to carry out the heinous act that centers the picture, the statement de Palma is trying to make is not that American soldiers are pigs, and that this is indicative of ALL military men overseas, he is simply stating that ANYONE, American or otherwise, put under the same levels of war-time stress for long periods of time, can be changed from normal men into monsters. His attack is not on the soldiers, but on the war itself.
And those facts are hard to rebuke. Very few men who fight in wars come back from them in the same mindset as when they left. The several men in my family who fought in wars refuse to talk about what they saw, or what they did, which can gnaw away at them from the inside. Though they may come back in one piece physically, their mental health can be a whole different story.
In the end, it's sad to see such a brilliant film receive such misguided negativity. In fact, just about every message board concerning this film degrades into typical "war, anti-war" arguments. To the one end, this shows that de Palma has indeed succeeded in getting both sides to think about the war. But on the other hand, I don't believe half of the people on either side have even seen it.
Whatever your views are on the war, "Redacted"s aim, like any great film, is to truly make you think. And it is on these grounds that it truly succeeds.
Masterfull, confronting, ugly and importantly the truth. November 6, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
- WoW -
To sum it up in one word. Wow.
Disregard the nay-sayers, the biased, and everyone else.
See this movie. And be your own judge. This movie has to be seen.
There is a small reel of excellent war photography in the end which tells the story, and many more, Fox news & CNN will never.
Still in doubt ? Search for pictures about the war, there are so many. It's all there. . . But can you face the reality of it all ?
 Disappointing film August 15, 2008
I was looking forward to watching this film having seen everything that's been done on the Iraq war and being a De Palma movie fan. But this film was a 'stinker'. 90% of the movie is watching home video of the characters who with all due respect for serving their country, are mostly racist,ignorant and sadistic. The worst criticism I can state about the film is that for the most part it's just boring. The 'message' of the film, that war is insane and it makes those who have to fight it insane is clear enough and even honorable. But watching that message thru one dimensional characters showing what idiots they are, while recorded by the soldier who aspires to go to film school when the war ends, is just not entertaining.
The violence and sheer boredom presented are all done okay but the story just 'lays there' and no character grabbed me or created any rooting interest. I would not recommend this film to anyone.
A great war film August 4, 2008
This is one of the great war films. Lean and muscular, it is a complex, harrowing, confronting journey into hell's maw. It will leave you feeling enraged and burning with indignation. The film is about the America's willingness to send young men and women into a situation they are ill equipped to handle. Furthermore, the government is callously sacrificing lives on both sides of the fence for political and financial expediency.
I have been a De Palma fan for a long time. This film shows that the old master has lost none of his filmic virtuosity or his revolutionary fervour. It's a brilliant return to form and it is shameful so many lackeys have panned a cinematic high-point on ideological grounds.
Hillbilly Reunion!!! July 13, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Look, first of all, I don't give a rat's *ss what war you've fought in; if you're not black or native American, and have never had to fight to eat a damn hamburger, or get beat, shot at or killed, for whistling at a woman or for having the nerve to want to sit where you felt like on a bus, or for having the audacity for wanting to drink from a PUBLIC water fountain; if you haven't had to deal with any of these basic issues, don't spout off about being patriotic--you've had more to fight for--and die for--than those you'll call un-american. I'll bet that the same redneck who'll label a fine movie like this un-american would complain that some klansman lynching photo was propaganda, that we'd have to get the klan side of some black man being roasted for whistling at some white woman. If you want to rate the movie's merits, fine, but keep patriotism out of it. No one's more patriotic than people who'll fight and die for a country that deprives them of the basic rights of full citizenship. No one's more patriotic than a man who'll die for a country that has to pass a law for him to be a full citizen every seven years. This is a great movie. No, Rambo shouldn't get the oscar for best picture, Bubba!!
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