War is...?

Rating: 6/10 (22 February 2010)

The adventures of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. In many ways this was a well made and very realistic film told primarily from the point of view of the front line soldiers. However, it doesn't really deserve the hype nor the awards the director and the film have gathered so far.
I'm tempted to say that it's in a long line of 'war is hell' pictures but, on reflection, I'm not even sure it's as strong a statement as that - more like war is unpleasant or war is difficult. There's almost no attempt to put the Iraq war in a political context, although two sequences, one concerning a young Iraqi boy and another an Iraqi man forced to become a human bomb, suggest that the problem lies with the 'insurgents' rather than with the invasion force itself.
Better than The Green Berets but simply not in the same league as Paths of Glory or All Quiet on the Western Front.