Severe Clear

It's July 2002. After serving in Afganistan, First Lieutenant Mike Scotti volunteers to extend his term in the Marines to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is part of the Marine drive from Kuwait to Baghdad. He brings along a mini-camera to film starting from his shipping over to his return back to the States. It's a world of long waits and harrowing near-death action. It is raw. The guys have no filter. Mike's reasons for volunteering are duty, loyalty and even revenge for the sister of an acquaintance lost during 9/11. This is bottom up, not top down. These men are simply following orders. They are not political and accept their president's orders without question. The chaos and confusion is palpable as the initial welcome from Baghdad residents quickly fades. It's a compelling watch even in the future for its historical value.

A by the numbers documentary of the Iraq war. Now that everyone and their brother can bring a camera down there, there is a flood of available material. Thus we have a ton of documentaries about the two wars.

This is not one of the better ones. It lacks any real sense of critical thinking and falls victim to flag-waving more than anything else but this is not the films main problem.

The by far largest problem of the documentary is the protagonist Scotti. He's a pseudo-intellectual who narrates the documentary and through the course of the movie he will have said pretty much every blatantly stolen stereotypical thing someone can say about war. He tries really hard to sound both like a "cool soldier" and a guy who's really smart but fails miserably on both counts. This is of course a problem since the documentary stops being about the war and starts being about Scotti. And nobody loves Mike Scotti more than Mike Scotti.

The main problem with this movie is not the protagonist or the subject matter.

It's the shaky, out of focus "handycam" footage shot on a potato camera that is, frankly, way worse than numerous YouTube bodycam uploads. I'm not expecting someone to be standing up in a firefight with a camera on a tripod but this is just unwatchable. And when the camera does stop swinging around wildly, you get a mixture of sky, earth, thigh, ear, and all in low res. Oh and the odd bit of stock news footage.

You would be be off with the audiobook version! :) lol.

In your face in the best way. An ungarnished look into the initial invasion of Iraq.

Screenplay...................................... 9 / 10 Visuals................................................ 9 Sound................................................... 7 Editing................................................ 9 Music....................................................... 8 Timeless Utility................................. 10 Total.................................................... 52 / 60 ~= 8.7 (rounded to 9) Verdict................................................. Highly Recommended

Iraq from the front-lines. No setup, no objective, no talking heads, no "predetermined narrative", just an actual soldier filming actual war and recording actual news and politics as he goes into and fights the war.

The director and editors do an impressive job keeping the film fast paced and connected without falling into a simple time line of video camera shots and comments from the troops' point of view. So it's a bit more interesting and developed than the average Wikileaks video. Important context is seamlessly added to provide perspective.

All sorts of insights in this documentary, from the motivation of troops becoming soldiers, to their motivations going into the war, to their motivations as they fight it. It also captures much of the brutal and nasty nature of war. While it's sympathetic to the troops, it's hard to describe it as a sympathetic documentary.

Watch, cringe, learn, laugh, understand.