+ Best English Movie of the Year
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| A harsh-looking poster for Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha |
QUICK REVIEW:
Battle for Haditha is the true story of how a road-side bomb in the town of Haditha in Iraq in 2005 cost an American marine his life, whereupon his fellow marines shot and killed 24 civilian Iraqis, and the American Defense Ministry began 'handling' the 'incident'.
London-born filmmaker Nick Broomfield (Ghosts (2006)), - often of documentaries, - has made Haditha a docu-style retelling of the massacre; ultra-realistic and ultra-uncomfortable to watch for the same reason. The film shows in detail and with great precision the tragedy from several angles; from the two men, who set off the road-side bomb, to corporal Ramirez, (unfortunately played a bit unstably by Elliot Ruiz (Shapeshifter (2005))), who orders and partakes in the bloodbath. The film visualizes the perhaps greatest single war crime in the latest Iraq war.
Between the emotionally blunted marines, the screaming, local women and the stony faces of the top brass in the chain of command, it is clear, when seeing Broomfield's version of the story, that the 'battle' was won solely by the terrorists, who we see gain much new support after the massacre, and it all goes to expose the awful logics of the repugnant creature of war.
Battle for Haditha is a very strong and recommendable, grim tale of one of the many tragedies of the late Iraq war. It was impressively shot on location in Jordan and used Iraqi refugees and real US military personnel as actors and extras to achieve its great sense of realism.
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Watch the trailer here
Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
What do you think of Battle for Haditha?
Name some other fine war movies about some of the recent wars, (post-9/11 let's say)
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