One of the best film about troops returning from Iraq suffers from "Iraq film clichés". If you haven't seen many Iraq films this is the place to start

Rating: 5/10 (31 May 2008)

After a tour of duty in Iraq that almost kills him a soldier returns home only to find that he's going to have to go back as part of the Stop Loss program of the military thats being used to keep numbers of troops up.
Good, earnest, well acted tale is one of the better Iraq films to come out. That said I don't know if that really means much. Watching the film I'm forced to wonder if anyone is capable of making a great (or even totally good from start to finish) film about the war. Don't get me wrong its not bad, but on some level haven't we, or I, seen this all before? Its very much like any number of other war films, and while the high quality of the acting and the direction do count for much there was a moment where I forgot what I was watching because it all blended together with all the other Iraq films.
The opening Iraq scenes kind of doomed the film for me, since while they are well done, they are like any number of other films that have come out recently.They particularly reminded me of Home of the Brave with Samuel L Jackson-as did a chunk of the rest of the film. There is such a lack of imagination concerning Iraq scenes now that I was thinking that they make up "The banality of the Iraq war". Forgive me but what I see on You Tube and elsewhere looks better than this, it all looks more real (yes I know it is). I even prefer chunks of Brian De Palma's Redacted (which I hate), to the same patrol shots with the same sort of attacks, with the same GI bull crap.
I'm getting off on a tangent here- ultimately this is a good, but not great film thats worth a look. Though I have a feeling that if you haven't seen a good number of Iraq films see this one since its one of the best (with the Valley of Elah)