Who's in It: Patrick Carroll, Rob Devaney, Izzy Diaz, Daniel Stewart Sherman
The Basics: Based on a real incident, this un-documentary focuses on a group of U.S. soldiers in Iraq who rape and murder a teenage girl and her family. It's constructed out of fictionalized sources that director Brian De Palma found online from blogs, homemade videos and information about a case that did not make a huge impression on the American media, and so gruesome were the details.
What's the Deal? Here's how you're probably not like me: I've seen all the Iraq movies. All the documentaries. All the fictional ones we're being flooded with this autumn. Oh, yeah, and I watch and read the news, too. So personally, I'm feeling a little beaten down by all of it at this point. And this one is like all of those other movies rolled into one screaming, chaotic explosion of anger and despair. It's ugly and will leave you completely freaked out. That doesn't mean you shouldn't see it, because it's not horrible filmmaking or easily dismissed. I'm just saying be prepared for what you're going to get.
What "Redacted" Means: To censor information considered to be inflammatory or damning. It's basically what Tom Cruise knows he's doing to Meryl Streep in Lions for Lambs, another movie you probably won't see. Of course, Lions for Lambs sucks outright, so you shouldn't bother anyway. This one, on the other hand, is like the even more disturbing companion film to the unnerving Iraq documentary from earlier this year called No End in Sight.
What You Don't See: The rape or the murder, just in case that was going to keep you away. De Palma focuses his camera on everything else, especially the soldiers on screen who've lost their collective moral compass and turned animalistic.
What It's Not: Exploitation. A blanket assault on "the troops." Easygoing.