Newspaper Reviews Hit "Redacted," DePalma's Iraq Film

By: E&P Staff The new fictional film by Brian DePalma about U.S. troops taking part in a atrocity in Iraq -- and the limits of media coverage of the war -- has drawn generally positive reviews at film festivals and in major magazines. But newspaper reviewers are weighing in today, and they are widely voting thumb's down on the movie.

Here is a selection of excerpts from reviews today.
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Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Rife with false notes and speechifying, 'Redacted'wants to be a condemnation of how news in wartime is processed and doctored for the American public. Instead, DePalma's movie offers its own doctoring and processing, without delivering an ounce of real humanity - good or bad - in the bargain."

Kenneth Turan, Los ANgeles Times: "Even when they are doing nothing but needling one another in their quarters, everything about these soldiers, including their stance as well as their dialogue, feels fake, mannered and contrived, unmistakably the work of posturing actors and not actual combatants. The sense of frustration and annoyance that 'Redacted' elicits is intensified during the film's rape scene, which is painful three times over. Once because we are witnessing a horror, twice because we know that situations like this may well exist and three times because watching such a crude and feeble representation insults the reality it is trying to recapture."

Jan Stuart, Newsday: "De Palma is a bold, efficient writer, capable of drawing vivid characters with lean strokes. But 'Redacted' feels, if anything, too written, too cluttered with polished wiseguy banter and actor-y monologues for the hyper-realistic collage of styles he's after. He labors to make everything look just right and flow seamlessly, but the artificiality shows through."

A.O. Scott, The New York Times: "The problem with ?Redacted? is that the representation is an unwieldy hodgepodge of brutal naturalism and self-conscious theatricality, its potential power undermined by schematic storytelling and clumsy acting. What those handheld, low-definition recording devices capture is less unvarnished reality ? or a persuasive simulacrum of it ? than dinner theater or underrehearsed made-for-television drama."

Desson Thomson, The Washington Post: "Although the beginning is expertly fraught with foreshadowing of the horrors to unfold, 'Redacted' adds nothing to what we've seen in such documentaries... The film's moral commentary is De Palma redux: same old Brian enjoying the peeping, bringing us into the guilt zone, then saying shame on all of us."

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: "Curiously, Mr. De Palma makes very little effort to comprehend the wrongdoers in his version of Iraq. Their vile language and clear class inferiority distance them from any pity or understanding from the average audience member."

Christy Lemire, The Associated Press: "That the unknown cast members mostly look stiff and self-conscious, as if they're performing an off-Broadway play on film, contributes to the sensation that we're watching something that's obviously staged and makes it tougher to become truly immersed."

Tasha Robinson, The Chicago Tribune: "Americans in Iraq are seen through a variety of eyes, but too often, all the points of view seem to present the exact same story, which makes 'Redacted' more a straightforward visual experiment than the more nuanced, multilayered, self-reflective media portrait it sets out to be. Still, it's an effective experiment and a hackle-raising drama, and it's far better controlled than De Palma's last film, the flailing noir mess 'The Black Dahlia.'"