Hell and Back Again

I started off watching this documentary honestly because I was bored one night and wanted to watch a documentary. Being fluent in Oscar news, I decided I would be cultured and try to watch one of the documentaries that was nominated. After some searching around I had success in finding Hell and Back Again on Instant Watch. I was a little skeptic at first, because I am not big on the whole Afghan War documentaries. I hate how directors try to shove their ideas down my throat about the war, but I found Hell and Back Again much different.

I was entranced by how many ways the movie was pulling the opinion of the war. It first shows an injured Marine named Nathan who is crippled because of the war. Yet, the moment I began think it was an anti-war movie, Nathan is talking about how he wants to get back onto the front lines! I had to pause the movie and try to wrap my head around this and decide whether this was pro or anti-war. Then it hit me like a sack of bricks, this movie is not pro or anti, it's an actual documentary. It's what a documentary is meant to be, a picture of real life and a gap for the viewer to decide what is right or wrong. I un-paused the movie and continued to watch.

The rest of movie was as gripping and emotion provoking as the first fifteen minutes. The director managed to flip between the footage of the war and the home life of Nathan. You could see Nathan back home still recovering physically from the war while at the same time the 'flashback' clips of the war lets the audience remember that there is more going on than we can see. As an audience you are spell bound. You see Nathan playing Modern Warfare 3 and you wonder what is going on in his head. You see Nathan playing with a gun and you move to the edge of your seats and begin to think that something very real could happen right here. The sheer tension created in this documentary is massive and is not lost on audiences.

One of my favorite scenes in this movie is when Nathan and his wife are looking at a new house and Nathan opens a door. At that moment the movie flicks over to clips from Nathan overseas as he and his fellow soldiers are kicking down doors and then the movie flicks back to Nathan back at the new house where he is looking like he is about to throw up. The raw emotion in that scene really got me going. Overall I was pleasantly surprised at this movie. As a documentary it filled the requirements of not only being entertaining and thought provoking, but also being available to the public. The story was interesting and the people in the story were very real to me. I am giving this movie a 10 out of 10 rating and highly recommend that if you can spare 80 minutes of your life for this movie, then watch it.

"Hell and Back Again" is a film that was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar. I say inexplicably not because of the subject matter but because the film just seemed to be lacking and didn't seem finished. Yet, oddly, it came close to winning the Oscar for the best documentary feature of the year.

The film follows a marine, Nathan Harris, from his tour of duty in Afghanistan to his life at home following his severe injury in action. It goes back and forth again and again to both locations and the transitions back and forth are a bit jarring. So what did I think? Well, some of the film is quite good--such as seeing the tension and hellish battle conditions the men go through. But it also feels like they just ran out of money and stopped making the film--with so much unanswered and Harris's fate very, very uncertain. The film just seems to stop...and is maddening to watch because of this.

This is one of the most amazing documentaries I have ever seen.

The imagery is stunning, and the filming is pristine - especially considering the conditions - the camera and editing are high quality, and the shakiness is pretty subdued.

Most importantly, the stories are interesting and all too real.

The editing, which juxtaposes the return of the wounded Nathan Harris to America with the striking images of war is chilling. There is simply no other film which actually shows what it might be like to actually have PTSD.

The soldiers in this documentary are all too real, never joking with the camera while in combat, and coming close to death numerous times.

If you want proof, look closely, despite the presence of the camera, few soldiers ever look into it. This may have been a directorial call, but more than likely, it is because they are real soldiers, and one second looking at a camera - especially in such hostile territory - could cost you your life.

This movie is something special, and I doubt we will see anything like it again.

Honestly - props to this filmmaker Dennis - because he has some serious guts/grit.

It's so shockingly sad to see the real poorly trained Marines in combat. Just a bunch of YOYOs, screaming their heads off when they were dropped behind the enemy line. All they did was just shooting blindly to somewhere in front of them. They carried so many gears in their backpack that made them very difficult to run in the field. What we heard from the commanding officer was just a bunch big and hollow words, trying so hard to encourage those young Marines to do a good job, but once they were on the ground, heard bullets whizzed around them, all they could do was screaming to each other, hiding from some obstacles and kept shooting blindly to their general random front directions. They have wasted so many bullets to shoot nothing. We were used to be fooled by many movies telling us how cool, how brave and how well-trained the US Marines, how tough they were, how they got even tougher jobs after they did several tours. The overly glorified US Marines stories were just like fictions, fantasies that could only exist in daydreams.

This documentary if on the basis of exposing how terrible the US Marines during combat, it should got 10 stars, because it had vividly shown us how pathetic the Marines were in general. But if you take it from a different patriotic angle, this documentary sucked big time, it did nothing to glorify the US forces, especially the Marines. They have mindlessly wasted their lives wherever they were thrown into. All of them just looked so lame, so timid, so scared, all they could and would do is just shooting blindly to their unknown enemies. What a pathetic documentary since what it showed to us only made us shaking our heads constantly.

"that does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home? Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve. It is a masterpiece in the cinema of war" well, don't buy these words on its face value. this documentary actually didn't do anything further or deeper than all the other similar documentary films about the wars and battles in this particular theater. lives of the marines were just wasted for no purpose, just like when soviet invaded this country, thought it's a piece of cake but turned out to be a tough sheet that only made the soviet went bankruptcy. there's no answers to those dubious questions about patriotism, humanitarianism, moral values or anything.

what we saw in this film was just a bunch of marines randomly shooting bullets aimlessly to nothing, while casualties added up more and more. then the wounded marine came home to find out that nobody in the u.s.a. gave a sheet to what he and his comrades did in that remote country. he couldn't even find a parking space in the big shopping center. he tried so hard to explain those "why we have to fight against taliban in that raghead country", because even he himself couldn't find an appropriate answer to satisfy himself.

this is a very boring and pointless documentary that didn't tell anything worth watching or understanding. this film is actually the worst one i've ever seen so far. by watching this kind of pointless film only wore out my patriotism thinner and thinner. why only poor kids from the lower income families got the privilege to serve their country, lost their lives, their arms and legs and hopes when they came back from that sheethole and they have to deal with their painful treatments and recoveries alone? now, we are backing out and getting away from that death trap, and all the lives of our wonderful young men we wasted there would only be a faded memory. America is just like the huge parking lot in a shopping center, finding a parking space for your vehicle is the most important mission on a daily basis. war on terror? who cares? patriotism is not just waving a stars-n-stripes flag or put a flag on your imported car or, wrapping a yellow ribbon on the tree in your front yard.