Reply #4: Rather than "uncensored", I'd say "unedited"... (thumbs down) [View All]

[western mass]

I didn't sense anything particularly objectionable about the filmmaker's politics (he seemed to be at pains to play it middle-of-the-road). His talents as a documentary maker, on the other hand, are pretty questionable if Gunner Palace is any indication.

Deadly BORING. Poorly edited, lack of a coherent narrative. The footage is mostly uninteresting, with lots of filler (ie a marine riffing on his guitar interminably). Events that get at the intensity and (dare I say) drama of the situation mostly happen off-screen, recounted second-hand while you watch footage of soldiers standing around or riding in trucks. All of this with a soundtrack of rock & rap blaring in the background--shades of a wannabe Apocalypse Now Iraq (it seems like an annoying affectation after a while).

I've seen decent reviews of this. I can only guess that it's because the media blackout has been so complete that people are dying for any scrap of footage from Iraq. The mundane stuff in this film is the sort of thing we SHOULD see in clips on the evening news. Strung together, it didn't make for a particularly enlightening or interesting documentary, sad to say.