Trailer is NSFW

Its cinema verité style, interspersed with commentary from soldiers interviewed after the deployment, puts you in the center of the action – and inaction – alongside a half dozen or so principal characters. It captures the chaos and the boredom, the courage and the fear, the tension and the playful abandon of their stretch in Outpost Restrepo, named after their young medic, a Korengal casualty.

In between IED attacks, firefights, digging in on a cliff-side, negotiating compensation with the villagers for a dead cow, mourning dead comrades, rooting out arms caches in the village, and general horsing around, these soldiers, painfully young but becoming men before our eyes, offer honest and revealing emotions about these experiences. One soldier says he can barely get his head around it all; he just hopes that “one day I’ll be able to process it differently.”

There is no commentary, however, from politicians, military brass, family, or the filmmakers themselves, who have studiously stripped away any political context for their subject. “The only goal,” they say in their press kit, “is to make viewers feel as if they have just been through a 94-minute deployment. This is war, full stop. The conclusions are up to you.”

Co-directors Junger and Hetherington explain that “the war in Afghanistan has become highly politicized, but soldiers rarely take part in that discussion… Their experiences are important to understand, regardless of one’s political beliefs.” Absolutely true. But they go on to say that “Beliefs can be a way of avoiding looking at reality. This is reality.”

Maybe so, but avoiding beliefs can be a way of avoiding looking at reality, too. Beliefs can give clarity, meaning, and purpose to reality, as well as shape reality itself; a clash of belief systems is the reason those soldiers were in the Korengal in the first place. To strip away the proper context deprives the audience of a perspective that might have infused the film with greater depth and power. In all fairness, that would be a different movie – a complex, fascinating one perhaps, but one the filmmakers were anxious to avoid.

“Most of documentaries about Iraq and Afghanistan so far have been political polemics, and I think the public is exhausted by them,” says Junger, best-known as the author of The Perfect Storm. The Los Angeles Times echoes this approvingly, noting that the filmmakers of current war documentaries “say that audiences at this historical moment are best served by films that center on specific players instead of the larger conflict.”

Actually, what the public is exhausted by, and never responded to favorably in the first place, is the relentless cinematic depiction of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as unwinnable quagmires, and our prosecution of them as illegal and immoral, in such documentaries as Taxi to the Dark Side, No End in Sight, and The Road to Guantanamo – not to mention Hollywood dramas like Redacted, Lions for Lambs and The Green Zone.

The inconvenient truth that the Times is eager to sweep under the carpet is that such left-leaning films about the current conflicts do not fill theaters, even if they win Oscars, like Taxi to the Dark Side (and even The Hurt Locker, which is a more ambiguous case). Their message: America is bad, our cause is unjust, and war is bad anyway, so we should bring our troops home. Thus Junger is correct that the public does respond more favorably to the rare, politically neutral films that at least honor the troops, such as Taking Chance, Brothers at War, and now, Restrepo.

So he and Hetherington strove for an almost claustrophobically tight focus on the soldiers themselves, and in that respect, their documentary is a compelling slice of military life under circumstances extraordinary even for wartime. “Soldiers are living, fighting and dying at remote outposts in Afghanistan in conditions that few Americans back home can imagine,” Junger rightfully notes. These warriors are too busy doing their job and dodging bullets to debate foreign policy.

But there remains a nagging blind spot to this narrow focus of these politically neutral films: the context of who our enemy is and why we’re fighting them. The Taliban don’t even get a cameo in Restrepo. The reality, as Junger puts it, is not just the soldiers’ day-to-day experience; the larger reality is that our troops are pitted against an implacable religious fanaticism that is a towering threat to democracy, freedom, and modernity itself; a fanaticism about which our leaders are too often in denial even if theirs aren’t. The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe reports that when an Army officer in the valley attempted to reach out to the leader of the Korengali, the response was “If you surrender to the law of Allah then our war against you will end. If you keep fighting for man’s law then we will fight you until Doomsday.”

And therein lies the essence of our Forever War with radical Islam: sharia law versus democracy, in an apocalyptic death match for the future of humanity. Contrary to the Left’s portrayal of this clash, it is a just cause, we are the good guys, and war may be hell but it is sometimes necessary to do battle with evil. This is the true context and the cinematic message that will resonate with audiences.

That’s not to say that we’re handling the conflict well. The reality is also that our troops in Afghanistan are hamstrung by the most restrictive Rules of Engagement in the history of warfare. Our enemy’s clear mission is to drive the infidel from Muslim lands and ultimately from the face of the earth, hacking off civilian and military heads indiscriminately along the way. Our military mission is a nation-building, hearts-and-minds-winning counterinsurgency strategy whose success is measured by “how people feel.”  Ludicrously, we now hand out medals for “courageous restraint” (what I wouldn’t give to hear General Patton’s take on that oxymoron). This context adds a disturbing new dimension to the daily reality of the Restrepo characters and soldiers just like them stationed in Afghanistan.

See Restrepo for its visceral impact and its sympathetic, charismatic cast of real-life heroes (including one quiet young man whose mother he calls “a f***ing hippie” who wouldn’t even allow him a squirt gun as a child). Then remember the context in which those soldiers and many more like them struggle, a larger reality that the film doesn’t address. I can’t sum up that context better than the brilliant British journalist and cultural critic Melanie Phillips:

[T]he Afghanistan war… will hit the buffers unless someone gets a grip. And that means fighting this war as if it really is a war and not a “nation-building” exercise; and saying unequivocally that America is there for as long as it takes because, however awful and bloody this conflict is, the alternative – a jihadi-boosting defeat for the west and the Talebanisation of Pakistan – is infinitely worse.

I was recently privileged to attend a pre-screening of a film that shows Americans exactly what we’ve been missing. “Brothers At War” dares to give viewers an honest and intimate look at a family that supports two brothers on the front lines, from the perspective of a sibling who decided not to serve in the military. Freshman filmmaker Jake Rademacher follows his brothers to Iraq to try and understand their commitment, and to see for himself what they experience when they deploy “over there” for so many months at a time. Throughout the film we witness the tensions between the brothers as they try to discover a way to communicate with each other despite the ideological divisions. There are moments of frustration, anger, and skepticism as they confront each other, and there are moments of love, tenderness, and genuine respect as they come to understand one another through these shared experiences.

Jake brings the audience into the most intimate of moments, and allows unscripted access into the hearts of his family members and the soldiers he encounters. While out on a five day surveillance/reconnaissance patrol along the Syrian border, Jake documents the close fraternity of the team members and artlessly conveys their human qualities to viewers who may never have met men like these. He interviews several of the young men, and their sincerity belies a trust that is not easy to acquire in such a short time. They trusted him simply because he was not out there to prove some archetype of the American soldier, he was there to let them speak for themselves.

Most Iraq veterans will applaud the range of scenes portrayed in the documentary, which doesn’t fall prey to the temptation to go heavy on the action and skimp on character development. He shows us life on a large forward operating base, a duration patrol in the scorching desert heat, a family reuniting at a Midwestern airport, a sniper mission in an Iraqi town, a partnered patrol with Marines and Iraqi soldiers, and more. Each time, and with each new cast of characters, he allows his subjects to paint their own portraits in brilliant detail. It is evident that Jake is learning as he is filming, and he is not ashamed to show his own development from an action-seeking yet naïve journalist to one humbled and keenly aware of the courage and dedication of our servicemen and women. As I heard him say to another journalist, “I learned who my brothers were from their brothers-in-arms.”

The film tells the story of the Rademacher family on both sides of the ocean and chronicles the experience without an agenda. “There really didn’t seem to be an overt message,” said one viewer after the screening. “It’s just the story, and one that most people don’t know and really need to see.” It is this honesty and obvious lack of spin that elevates this movie and allows the audience to relax from the hyper-vigilance required to filter today’s media offerings. There is no need to come to this movie with an understanding of the “Anbar Awakening,” or the “surge,” and there is no cause to leave feeling angry or tricked. It’s a movie about Americans and their families, about who our soldiers and Marines are, and about what it’s like for them to go to war. It’s a movie that you should see, and a story that you need to hear.

“Brothers At War” opens in limited release March 13th, and and will open in wider release on March 27th. For more information, including theaters and showtimes, go to www.brothersatwarmovie.com. The film’s trailer can be viewed here.

Editor’s Note: Below is the current release schedule. For information on how to bring ”Brothers at War” to a theatre near you, please visit the website. 

3/13/2009

• Columbus, GA (near Fort Benning), Carmike 15 – http://www.carmike.com/
• Fayetteville, NC (near Fort Bragg), Carmike 12 – http://www.carmike.com/
• Jacksonville, NC (near Camp LeJeune), Carmike 16 – http://www.carmike.com/
• Chicago, IL AMC River East – AMC – http://www.amctheatres.com/
• Washington DC Landmark E Street Cinema – Landmark Theatres – http://landmarktheatres.com/
• Arlington, VA AMC Shirlington – AMC – http://www.amctheatres.com/

3/20/2009

• Akron (Ohio National Guard), Regal Interstate Park 18 – Regal Cinemas – http://regalcinemas.com/

3/27/2009

• Augusta, GA (near Fort Gordon, US Army)
• Savannah, GA (near Fort Stewart, US Army), Coming Soon
• Shreveport, LA (near Barksdale AFB, US Air Force) Cinemark Tinseltown 17 – http://www.cinemark.com/
• Clarksville, TN (near Fort Campbell, US Army) Carmike Governor’s Square 10 – Carmike – http://www.carmike.com/
• Hampton, VA (near Langley AFB, US Air Force), AMC Hampton Towne Center 24 – AMC – http://www.amctheatres.com/
• Newport News, VA (near Fort Eustis, US Army), AMC Kiln Creek 20 – AMC – http://www.amctheatres.com/
• Norfolk, VA (near Norfolk Naval Station, US Navy), Coming Soon
• Killeen, TX (near Fort Hood), Hollywood Stadium 14 – Hollywood Theaters – http://gohollywood.com/
• San Antonio, TX – Bijou at the Crossroads – Santikos – http://www.santikos.com/
• Cleveland Heights (Ohio National Guard), Cedar Lee Cinema
• Dayton (near Wright-Patterson AFB, US Air Force), Regal Hollywood 20-Fairfield Commons – Regal Cinemas – http://regalcinemas.com/
• Decatur, IL Carmike Hickory Pointe 12 – Carmike – http://www.carmike.com/
• Tacoma, WA (near Fort Lewis), Coming Soon
• Oceanside, CA (near Camp Pendleton) Regal Oceanside 16 – http://regalcinemas.com/
• Monterey, CA (near Presidio of Monterrey, DOD), Osio Cinema

This week’s Washington Times column:

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. | After spending two weeks on something akin to a fact-finding mission in depressed New York and depleted Washington, D.C., I found no answers to our nation’s mounting ills. I discovered that there is much to be angry about and unlimited reasons for deep concern. But on the evening after my return, the stars aligned on the outskirts of Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and for a brief moment I felt safe again in America.

On Saturday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the second annual “Celebration of Freedom Gala.” We joined more than 1,000 others who, like us, were electrified to honor 43 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients. We also gave our thanks to former first lady Nancy Reagan, war hero and actor Charles Durning, and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

In between courses, we heard rousing patriotic vignettes. One was Steve Amerson’s refreshingly traditional and soaring national anthem. Another was a tear-inducing “Freedom Never Cries” from John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. Scores of celebrities donning black ties and gowns mingled with our nation’s highest-decorated veterans and active-duty men and women.

Unlike at other awards shows, this star-studded crowd honored something bigger than themselves. I note this without taking anything away from the individual achievements of talented artists who have paid homage to every cause under the sun. But this event was different. The armed forces of the United States have fought and died to protect the freedom of expression that allowed these artists to ply their trade.

Before the program commenced at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, one prominent actor sang the praises of HBO’s “Taking Chance” to a Vietnam-era Medal of Honor recipient. The film is not just another Hollywood attack on the military. Quite the contrary. “I watched it with my son, and we both cried,” the well-known face from film and television told a true hero. “It is deeply respectful and not in the least bit political.”

The same could be said of the dinner. Partisanship was not on the bill as dozens of decorated veterans of unknown partisan stripe stood to accept the audience’s unconditional and rousing appreciation.

Tom Selleck presented the “Lifetime Achievement Award” to a frail yet still elegant Mrs. Reagan, who received the first extended standing ovation of the evening. The 87-year-old former first lady was making her first public appearance since fracturing her pelvis and sacrum in October. She summoned the courage to accept the award in front of a cross-section of people who have grown to admire her during her half-century in Hollywood and in public service.

Gary Sinise, a Presidential Citizens Medal recipient and the event’s co-sponsor, delivered the Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment to Charles Durning, whose courage and grit during World War II earned him the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. The 86-year-old star of “The Sting” and “Dog Day Afternoon” received a hero’s welcome worthy of both his military and film career.

Mr. Sinise asked attendees to commit themselves to entertaining the troops and singled out one actor/singer who had done so in spades: Connie Stevens, who labored for 40 years for the USO. Miss Stevens, still beautiful and radiant at 70, accepted the extended and deserved standing ovation.

You can read the column in full here.

By the way, I realize that I’m a little late on this but, being just a regular schmo, I don’t get advance screeners of things.  Consider this to be like talking to the buddy you haven’t seen since Friday.

Based on true events, the movie follows the experiences of Lieutenant Colonel Mike Strobl and is a moving tribute to PFC Chance Phelps, a 19-year-old Marine who was killed in battle in 2004.  Even though the story follows LtCol Strobl as he escorts the body of this fallen Marine back to his family, it does not victimize Phelps.  Further, it shows a side of America that I rarely see, living in Los Angeles.  At every opportunity the movie takes the time to demonstrate the honor shown by fellow members of the military, as well as civilians raising hand to heart to offer respect.  Not even the camera is disrespectful to PFC Phelps – he is more a symbol of all the brave men and women that we’ve lost in Iraq.

I’m often particularly aware of how other actors carry themselves when called upon to portray Marines. Military bearing is not something that can be obtained from the wardrobe department.  Kevin Bacon did an outstanding job portraying Strobl.  He performed his role with the silent strength that we’ve come to see in many of the members of our military.

While “Taking Chance” effectively illustrates the true cost of war, it doesn’t exploit it for political reasons. Rather, it plays as a tribute to those willing to pay that price for the rest of us.

Semper fidelis.