(Excellent)

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2009)

Most films lately are becoming stale, over-theatrical, and oh so predictable, mostly due to an increasing public obsession with action and sex. More films are dumb down today than ever before in my humble opinion. Maybe it's because we're all getting dumber, or maybe it's because capitalism has entwined itself in American film culture and utterly corrupted it. Needless to say, the sense of realism in films like Ladri di Biciclette, and this film, La battaglia di Algeri, seems otherwise extinct. I come from a documentary photography background and I cringe at most movies for how plastic they all are. I admire a sense of truth in everything. But from cliché romances with overpaid A-List celebrities, to absurd, fictional epics featuring talentless actors like Nick Cage and Brendon Frazier, we rarely see truth in film. The Battle of Algiers is so pure and captivating it restored faith in cinema completely for me. It is an epic of realism and emits startling truths about war and insurgency. All the while it accomplishes this reenactment of a time in history without the slightest sense of fabrication. Rarely do I applaud a movie at the credits, but at the end of Algiers, I wanted a standing ovation. Summary: A masterpiece.