chaud_lapin

This hour-long film documents the day-to-day activities of a US Armed Forces field hospital in Baghdad, with often very graphic, disturbing images. This unit sees an unending stream of carnage, both injured US service men and women, most of whom are very young, as well as Iraqi civilians; all are swept up in the vicious internecine struggles and the violent resistance to the US-led occupation of Iraq. The film highlights the humanity and dedication of the hardworking doctors and nurses of the unit amid the utter chaos of the occupation and the long-simmering civil war; it brings home the tragic impact of this ill-conceived military adventure on the lives of ordinary individuals.

Perhaps the most moving moment of the documentary are the words of an army chaplain next to the body of a fallen soldier whose life the doctors were unable to save: "We hope that his life and his death will hasten the cause of peace -- and this senseless war and violence will end".

Despite all the great talent corralled together for this film, it is a resounding dud. Warren Beatty tries to be another Cary Grant but he just doesn't have the latter's charm, elegance, and class. Annette Benning is affecting, but together the two don't put much passion or urgency in their supposedly torrid affair. About the only reason to watch this movie is to catch a brief glimpse of 86 year-old Katharine Hepburn, and this is hardly her best work. Aficionados of this genre would be better of tracking down the film on which it was based, "An Affair to Remember" (1957), with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, itself a Technicolor remake of the black-and-white "Love Affair" (1939).