Stars:
***
Rating: R for extremely disturbing violence
and language
Run Time: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Horror-meister
Brian De Palma tackles a different kind of terror in this disturbing and controversial
docu-drama.
“Redacted”
visually documents imagined events before, during and after a 2006 rape and
murder in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra. A sadistic crime perpetrated by
an American soldier upon an innocent teen.
What starts
as an experiment – a corps of Army buddies documenting their existence in a
visual diary that will help their cameraman gain entrance to USC film school –
gradually goes dark as the soldiers react to the heat, the sounds, the smells
and the ugly realities of life in Iraq.
An itchy
handheld captures the daily grind of keeping a lid on insurgent traffic at a
local checkpoint and reconnaissance missions to area homes to flush out
terrorists. During a routine check a couple bad apples go postal, raping a
15-year old girl and slaughtering her mother, sister and grandfather.
These
inhuman atrocities and their aftermath are captured via a patchwork of multimedia
feeds; video postings, smart phones and digital cameras. The locals get their
revenge with vicious and startling alacrity; a thoroughly disquieting counterpoint.
Amidst the
horror De Palma has achieved a fresh level of perspective; the psychological
wounds of war as seen through the eyes of the damaged and eternally damned.