Redacted

[Kurosawa Fan]

It has surpassed Bee Movie as the worst film of the year, if not the new millennium. Utterly ridiculous, manipulative nonsense. The film was all of 90 minutes long and I wanted to shut it off. Poorly acted, poorly written, etc. It had almost no redeeming value.

[Raiders]

Awesome. I am seeing this in the theatre this weekend.

[balmakboor]

This review makes me really want to see it. It also makes me think my feelings will be all over the place.

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-circuit-redacted.html

[MadMan]

It has surpassed Bee Movie as the worst film of the year, if not the new millennium. Utterly ridiculous, manipulative nonsense. The film was all of 90 minutes long and I wanted to shut it off. Poorly acted, poorly written, etc. It had almost no redeeming value.So Bill O' Reily was right? :P


Hehehe. Anyways I'm interested in seeing it but so far I've only viewed the teaser which doesn't show anything except voices. That's all I know about the film so far.

[Kurosawa Fan]

So Bill O' Reily was right? :P



Certainly not. The biggest problem with the film was that it said nothing that hasn't already been said (and said more effectively) countless times in countless other films since this war began. It could have taken an interesting angle with the media, but chose to do nothing with it. It could have taken an interesting angle with the change in personality in the soldiers when they didn't know the camera was rolling, but it only showed they were the same people regardless of whether they were being filmed or not. This was a complete waste of time.

[DSNT]

I DVR'd it and even though I got through only about 20 minutes, I agree with KF's assessment. Who cares about the controversy when the filmmaking was this atrocious. You need a lot better actors to pull off the fictional verite style.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I DVR'd it and even though I got through only about 20 minutes, I agree with KF's assessment. Who cares about the controversy when the filmmaking was this atrocious. You need a lot better actors to pull off the fictional verite style.

Man, the first 20 minutes were gold compared to what follows. I strongly suggest just deleting it from your DVR if you felt that way already.

[Raiders]

Well, if atrocious acting is what is causing people grief, there is still hope for me. I have little aversion to bad acting.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, if atrocious acting is what is causing people grief, there is still hope for me. I have little aversion to bad acting.

I can't believe the number of critics who have responded positively to this. I understand the film was made with passion, but it's a mess, and offensively bland in comparison to other films about the war. I look forward to more people watching this, if only to find someone who loves it who will explain to me what they saw. Even the majority of the fresh critics comments on RT seem like they're just sympathetic to the subject matter, not the film itself.

[Rowland]

offensively bland in comparison to other films about the war. Which movies are you referring to?

I think Cult Icon has this high up on her top ten for this year, maybe she'll defend it. I'll watch it soon.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Which movies are you referring to?

I think Cult Icon has this high up on her top ten for this year, maybe she'll defend it. I'll watch it soon.

Pick one. Control Room, Jarhead, Gunner Palace, an everyday news report, the trailer for No End in Sight, etc. It had zero emotional pull, zero insight, zero compelling drama, zero convincing performances... I could go on, but I'm just repeating myself. Obviously I'm overstating things, but for me to forgive the amateurish acting and dialogue, it better be compelling/interesting/insightful/etc., and this wasn't. It was completely hollow.

[Ezee E]

Maybe I'll be happy that I missed this in Telluride. It's got nothing but polar opinions though.

[balmakboor]

Btw, this is like the first De Palma movie ever that Armond White hated.

[Sven]

Btw, this is like the first De Palma movie ever that Armond White hated.

How do you know he did? Did he finally write a review for it?

[Sven]

How do you know he did? Did he finally write a review for it?
Nevermind. Found it. For interested parties (http://www.nypress.com/20/46/news&columns/feature2.cfm)

[Boner M]

It's weird that De Palma intends the film as such a desperate call-to-action for audiences, even as admits that he's used deliberately distancing, Brechtian devices at the same time to aid his themes. The film already seems misbegotten to me.

I'll still be checking it out, even though I've felt my BDP loyalties diminish recently.

[balmakboor]

How do you know he did? Did he finally write a review for it?

They're talking about it all over briandepalma.net. I haven't read it myself though. I'm not a big White fan myself.

[Ivan Drago]

It has surpassed Bee Movie as the worst film of the year, if not the new millennium. Utterly ridiculous, manipulative nonsense. The film was all of 90 minutes long and I wanted to shut it off. Poorly acted, poorly written, etc. It had almost no redeeming value.

You wanted to shut it off and DSNT DVR'd it - am I missing something here? Has this movie came into theaters already?

[Kurosawa Fan]

You wanted to shut it off and DSNT DVR'd it - am I missing something here? Has this movie came into theaters already?

There was a one night only showing on HD Movies, a channel on cable. They premier certain films by Magnolia Pictures while the film is in theaters. It's one night only. This one was on the 14th of this month. There's another film premiering in February, but I don't remember what it is.

EDIT: Here's their website. (http://www.hd.net/)

[Raiders]

KF, you so crazy.

[Raiders]

If David Fincher's Zodiac resembled a messy, endless collection of data and dead-ends, Brian De Palma's Redacted very much resembles the frustrated, scattered and disjointed discovery of information forming one collective image of a frantic, unsure point of view. Through various media outlets including documentary, blogging and online video, De Palma segregates the drama and flow of information in the film to the point of nausea. But then that's the point. In this age of intrusive media and new levels of voyeurism on display, De Palma as much indicts the form as the content. His film's rage at the war in Iraq is stirring but hardly new or informative, and as a film against the Iraq war, it is only moderately effective in its own unfettered view of the moral lows that develop in wartime (De Palma has already trekked this territory in Casualties of War). But as a piece of media, it is a remarkably potent film if only because it never manages one clear view of anything. From its first-person perspective shots that show a soldier's unease about an approaching vehicle (is it friend or foe?) to its back-home scenes of a soldier's wife blogging on the Internet about her emotions and thoughts, it displays a war and a media for a new generation. Gone are the public outcries and TV-centered news footage, and welcome to an age where we get the majority of our information via a 17" monitor with a keyboard and where our protests and thoughts are expressed across cyberspace.

The key to the film seems clear: nothing is shown with any amount of real intimacy. It is almost to a one filtered through media and different perspectives. War is an act where the farther we are made to seem from the action, the less likely we are to question its validity. The final montage of bodies is hard to look at, if only because the rest of the film is spent cluttering the clarity of what we all know is on the other side of the camera.

[Kurosawa Fan]

KF, you so crazy.
No. You're blinded by your love for De Palma. This film is utter shit. In your review you're giving him credit for the film being muddled. I can get blogs and news reports in daily life. I know how mixed up this war is, and I live in this new generation you speak of. Everything he shows me is bland, and it's common knowledge. There's no insight anywhere in the film. He's merely presenting in fictional form what anyone can find online, and has nothing to say about what's presented, no opinion to speak of other than "war is bad". You pretty much agree with what I'm saying, hence your "it never manages one clear view of anything." Only somehow you find that to be a positive trait. I'm baffled.

[Bosco B Thug]

Ooooh. Crass, concept-narrowed militant anti-militantism or expertly meta-textured social commentary... makes me want to consider seeing this one. Shouldn't take too long to get to DVD, though, hopefully. It's not surprising to see all the one-star "User Comments" on IMDb.

[Raiders]

I don't need a film to tell me something I don't already know in order to be successful. The experience of this film was unique. It felt like a discovery process, the compiling of information from various sources and outlets to paint a picture of one central event. The film is messy and it doesn't offer one, single viewpoint to the actions on screen. I think De Palma's vision is clear, he simply distorts it through various media. I have never seen a film like this one, and I admit the novelty on a second viewing may be less, but it doesn't effect negatively the impact of seeing De Palma's unique way of communicating the horribleness of war, and as the saying goes, "cinema isn't about what it's about, but how it is about it." I think De Palma managed to say something interesting through his usage of media here, and just because it doesn't offer anything new within specific scenes and sections, I can't think of another film that brought it all together the way this one did.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't need a film to tell me something I don't already know in order to be successful. The experience of this film was unique. It felt like a discovery process, the compiling of information from various sources and outlets to paint a picture of one central event. The film is messy and it doesn't offer one, single viewpoint to the actions on screen. I think De Palma's vision is clear, he simply distorts it through various media. I have never seen a film like this one, and I admit the novelty on a second viewing may be less, but it doesn't effect negatively the impact of seeing De Palma's unique way of communicating the horribleness of war, and as the saying goes, "cinema isn't about what it's about, but how it is about it." I think De Palma managed to say something interesting through his usage of media here, and just because it doesn't offer anything new within specific scenes and sections, I can't think of another film that brought it all together the way this one did.

Obviously, this is where you and I differ.

Control Room is a film that shows the impact of media in a different, but much more compelling and interesting way.

[eternity]

So far, it's pretty damn terrible.

Eternity- 1
Wats- 0

[Raiders]

So far, it's pretty damn terrible.

Eternity- 1
Wats- 0

What the hell?

[eternity]

http://icine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12819
&
http://icine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12821

[Boner M]

http://icine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12819
&
http://icine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12821
There's still more reason to anticipate Redacted than August Rush, you Smokin' Aces-lover, you.

[eternity]

There's still more reason to anticipate Redacted than August Rush, you Smokin' Aces-lover, you.
I'm not even anticipating August Rush, I just had a huge list of movies I planned to see and I put it on there. Critics are actually liking it too, unlike Redacted, which is this week's whipping boy. Deservingly so, because it blows.

Smokin' Aces is the shit, too. Misquote that all you want.

[Rowland]

I didn't realize icine had so much traffic. Cool.

And yeah, August Rush? *retch*

[Rowland]

Critics are actually liking it tooAre you referring to the RT-meter? There are only six reviews.

[eternity]

The director helped write In America with her dad, and all six of the reviews I read, most of them were very positive while the other two weren't THAT harsh.

I might decide to go see it in an hour, probably not though.

[Derek]

Obviously, this is where you and I differ.

Control Room is a film that shows the impact of media in a different, but much more compelling and interesting way.

Control Room is great, but it essentially points out our misconceptions about Al-Jazeera and how the U.S. military filters information to both the Arab and US media. I don't see how this is really all that similar to Redacted. You keep harping on how the film doesn't show you anything you didn't already know, essentially ignoring the fact that it's insight is in its form, not its content. Also, wouldn't any film based on a true event be useless by your reasoning since we can all read about it on the interweb? Redacted is about the illusory nature of truth and the deceptive nature of self-mediated media. DePalma isn't making the film simply to show an act which lends support to any anti-war campaign, he's forcing us to acknowledge the multiple truths surrounding any one story. The film has a clear, relatively simple story arc, but it's the way that it's told that clearly holds DePalma's (and my) interest. He's less concerned with story than discourse itself and the ways it can both manipulate and be manipulated. The fact that "it never manages one clear view of anything" is precisely the point - finding it a fault is like bitching about an Antonioni film for not giving you clear character motivation or a clear resolution. I'm not sure why you'd even want one clear view because if DePalma told the same story in the form of, say, a biopic, then it really would be giving you nothing you couldn't get out of a newspaper.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Control Room is great, but it essentially points out our misconceptions about Al-Jazeera and how the U.S. military filters information to both the Arab and US media. I don't see how this is really all that similar to Redacted.

Redacted makes similar points by showing us only international news broadcasts, and by showing us the string of dead bodies at the end as a way of rubbing the American media's nose in what they won't allow us to see. That was where I made that distinction.


You keep harping on how the film doesn't show you anything you didn't already know, essentially ignoring the fact that it's insight is in its form, not its content. Also, wouldn't any film based on a true event be useless by your reasoning since we can all read about it on the interweb?

You're ignoring the fact that De Palma's film has nothing to say. That's my problem. It has nothing to say about anything it presents. It says nothing interesting about the media. It says nothing interesting about the military. It says nothing interesting about the war. What am I supposed to take away from my experience?


Redacted is about the illusory nature of truth and the deceptive nature of self-mediated media. DePalma isn't making the film simply to show an act which lends support to any anti-war campaign, he's forcing us to acknowledge the multiple truths surrounding any one story.

What multiple truths? Where's the gray area in what took place in this film? What am I missing? Look, I understand what Redacted was going for, but Abu-Ghraib showed me the horrors of what American soldiers can do. So this "deceptive nature of self-mediated media" is another case of De Palma presenting an uninteresting point. It's not thought-provoking because for the most part, I've already thought most of this through with other stories and information I've received in the last 6 years. His film brings nothing new to the table. I didn't want to sit down and discuss the merits of the war, or the soldiers, or the media, because I've been having these conversations for years because other films and media reports came along with the same points that De Palma was trying to make.


The film has a clear, relatively simple story arc, but it's the way that it's told that clearly holds DePalma's (and my) interest. He's less concerned with story than discourse itself and the ways it can both manipulate and be manipulated. The fact that "it never manages one clear view of anything" is precisely the point - finding it a fault is like bitching about an Antonioni film for not giving you clear character motivation or a clear resolution. I'm not sure why you'd even want one clear view because if DePalma told the same story in the form of, say, a biopic, then it really would be giving you nothing you couldn't get out of a newspaper.

Again, it's not about a clear view, it's about a clear opinion. De Palma doesn't infuse his film with any opinion more deep than war is bad, and soldiers can do bad things, and the media is hiding the truth about this war and our soldiers. Now, perhaps I'd look beyond that if the rest of the components of the film were worth a damn, but the performances and the writing were so terrible, there was nothing left on which to shift my focus.

[balmakboor]

Control Room is great, but it essentially points out our misconceptions about Al-Jazeera and how the U.S. military filters information to both the Arab and US media. I don't see how this is really all that similar to Redacted. You keep harping on how the film doesn't show you anything you didn't already know, essentially ignoring the fact that it's insight is in its form, not its content. Also, wouldn't any film based on a true event be useless by your reasoning since we can all read about it on the interweb? Redacted is about the illusory nature of truth and the deceptive nature of self-mediated media. DePalma isn't making the film simply to show an act which lends support to any anti-war campaign, he's forcing us to acknowledge the multiple truths surrounding any one story. The film has a clear, relatively simple story arc, but it's the way that it's told that clearly holds DePalma's (and my) interest. He's less concerned with story than discourse itself and the ways it can both manipulate and be manipulated. The fact that "it never manages one clear view of anything" is precisely the point - finding it a fault is like bitching about an Antonioni film for not giving you clear character motivation or a clear resolution. I'm not sure why you'd even want one clear view because if DePalma told the same story in the form of, say, a biopic, then it really would be giving you nothing you couldn't get out of a newspaper.

You sold me.

Somehow, I think I'm really going to like Redacted. Besides, De Palma's Murder a la Mod and Black Dahlia had terrible acting and I still loved them to death.

[Rowland]

Redacted kinda sucks. I'd love to say that it's at least ambitious, but even De Palma's politics are reductive and pandering, and he utterly wastes a conceptually intriguing formal conceit that was ripe with possibilities. Even the much-lauded rape scene isn't affecting because the two characters involved are such hateful caricatures, laughably over-performed by hammy amateurs. De Palma's approach to a very similar sequence in Casualties of War was far superior, and even that was almost ruined by Penn hamming it up.

Happy, KF? :P

[Kurosawa Fan]

Good man.

[balmakboor]

I've watched Redacted twice now and I'm still looking hard for something to seriously criticize. Some random thoughts:

I'd read so much about how terrible the acting and dialogue is and now I'm completely befuddled. I think De Palma and his actors hit exactly the right notes throughout given the context of each segment. It's a perfect commentary on how people act in different situations with and without the presense of a camera.

The footage being shot by Salazzar has exactly the hammy, posturing, self-conscious "acting" that I would expect from these buddies in this situation. Point a camera at someone and they immediately start acting unnaturally.

The French documentary and television news segments feature very naturalistic "performances." There is also a striking contrast between Salazzar's handheld camera footage and the footage he shoots with a camera hidden on his helmet. He states, "I don't want the guys to get camera shy." We also see this shift in behavior when Salazzar puts his camera down during the card game and the others think he's turned it off.

I don't find the security camera scenes to work quite as well. They seem too carefully staged and perfectly framed. They do feel like a throwback to De Palma's early, theater-based works like Greetings and Hi, Mom which is probably the point.

The first sequence from the French documentary is a mini-masterpiece. It's like the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West with crinkling of a plastic water bottle and opening and closing of a lighter replacing dripping water and squeeking windmills. And the insert of the scorpion/ant shot and use of music from Barry Lyndon lends just the right measure of pretension one expects from such a documentary.

My favorite part of the scene though is the shot from inside the car. It is clearly a different car from the exterior shots, shot at a different time, maybe even a different day, and it calls into question the truthfulness of everything we are seeing. It points out that even documentaries are manipulated in the editing for dramatic effect.

I was taken by how funny Redacted is. Everything seems to be perched on that shakey ledge between the terrible and the comic that defines black comedy. There's a rubber ducky. There's a bird hat that chirps each time a character adjusts it. There is a way that war movie (especially Vietnam war movie) cliches keeping popping up only now to take on a joking nature. More than once, I had Starship Troopers flash through my head. I even laughed when a character is abducted and dragged into a van. Considering his fate, it's no laughing matter and yet the unexpected slapstick is undeniable. I read in a essay that Marx onced said that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as a joke. I think De Palma was consciously playing off that quote. Casualties of War was his tragedy. Redacted is his joke.

I think the only way to understand this war is to look at it as the great sick joke of our times.

So much more I could say. The themes of sexual repression and gambling/game playing are very well worked out for instance. For now though, just color me on the side of the Redacted defenders.

[Ezee E]

Gonna watch this in a few.

[balmakboor]

By the way, cahiers du cinema is focusing their first issue to be simultaneously released on paper (in French) and on the Internet (in English) on Redacted. If you have five bucks to throw away, you can subscribe at the link below:

http://www.e-cahiersducinema.com

I'm reading it right now.

[Ezee E]

It was pretty bad. I didn't really have a problem with the acting, it was the fact that everything was just so one-sided. Yes, I can believe that people change when they are being filmed, but eventually, they should've forgotten that they were being filmed, and became normal. They were the same regardless. Although, DePalma has always been a fan of over-the-top performances.

The rape scene did nothing to me, and that's just strange to say. You see it happening, and all I did was roll my eyes. We got that point, but why am I watching this?

Meh, wait... Ugh.

[balmakboor]

It was pretty bad. I didn't really have a problem with the acting, it was the fact that everything was just so one-sided. Yes, I can believe that people change when they are being filmed, but eventually, they should've forgotten that they were being filmed, and became normal. They were the same regardless. Although, DePalma has always been a fan of over-the-top performances.

The rape scene did nothing to me, and that's just strange to say. You see it happening, and all I did was roll my eyes. We got that point, but why am I watching this?

Meh, wait... Ugh.

That was quick.

We'll be agreeing to disagree soon, but I do have a few comments:

I agree about the film being one-sided. It is an expression of outrage and frustration. I don't expect fairness and balance in such a work.

You say the characters should've become normal after being filmed for a while, but what is normal? I think in a way that putting a camera in someone's face actually brings out the person's true self. Some of the characters become less self-conscious after being filmed for a while. Reno becomes, if anything, more self-conscious -- more true to himself? More normal?

I found the checkpoint scene, the first scene at the house, and the rape scene all moving. Not moving though in the same melodramatic way that the corresponding scenes in Casualties of War are. There is something about the aesthetics of Redacted that automatically distances the viewer just as the redaction due to the filters of media propaganda have distanced Americans from the truth of the war.

I can fully understand the film's love it or hate it reaction though.

[baby doll]

I can fully understand the film's love it or hate it reaction though.I can't. Well, maybe the hate, sort of, but love? There are things I admired about it, but I wouldn't say I liked it and I don't think I was supposed to.