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Redacted (film)

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Redacted
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBrian De Palma
Written byBrian De Palma
Produced byLaird Adamson
Mark Cuban (executive)
Jason Kliot
Christopher Matson
Gretchen McGowan
Simone Urdl
Joana Vicente
Todd Wagner (executive)
Jennifer Weiss
StarringTy Jones
Kel O'Neill
Daniel Stewart Sherman
Izzy Diaz
CinematographyJonathon Cliff
Edited byBill Pankow
Distributed byMagnolia Pictures[1]
Release date
November 16, 2007 (limited)
Running time
90 min.
Countries Vereinigte Staaten
 Kanada
SpracheEnglisch
Budget$5 million
Box office$781,441

Redacted is a 2007 American war film written and directed by Brian De Palma. It is a fictional dramatization, loosely based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq.[2][3] This film, which is a companion to an earlier film by De Palma, 1989's Casualties of War, was shot in Jordan.[4]

Redacted premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, where it earned a Silver Lion "best director" award.[5] It was also shown at the Toronto Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema. The film opened in Spain, and in fifteen theaters in limited release in the United States on November 16, 2007. The film received mixed reactions from critics[6] and a poor financial response in its limited U.S. release.[7][8]

Production

Principal photography commenced in Jordan in April 2007 and ended in May 2007.[9][10][11][12]

Reception

Critical reception

Redacted has received wildly mixed reviews. Michael Medved said "it could be the worst movie I've ever seen."[13] However, Kyle Smith gave the movie a 3 star (out of 4) rating, saying, "(It) is a piece of anti-war propaganda whose aims I don't agree with, but it jolted me nonetheless."[14] As of July 2008 Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave it a 3 and 1/2 stars (out of 4) stating that “the film is shocking, saddening and frustrating.".[15] In a critical piece about the depiction of war by Hollywood, award-winning journalist John Pilger described the film as "admirable".[16]

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film was rated "rotten", with only 43 percent of the 93 reviews being positive (including 48 percent of 27 "top critics" reviews) and the average rating 5.3/10.[17] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 30 reviews.[18]. The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma chose it as the best film of 2008. [19]

Box office

On the weekend of its U.S. release the movie was viewed by approximately 3,000 people, grossing only $25,628.[20] Brandon Gray, publisher of Box Office Mojo, said the low per-theater ratio made the film a flop for De Palma.[8] Richard Johnson ran an article titled "De Palma Iraq flick bombs".[13] The Daily Telegraph also said that the theatrical release had "bombed" in the U.S.[7] Total U.S. gross amounted to only $65,388. International release added $716,053 for a total worldwide gross of $781,441.[20] The film's budget was $5 million.

Controversies

Relation to the real life incident

De Palma has been criticized for not including the fact that all of the soldiers involved in the real-life Mahmudiyah killings were prosecuted for the rape and murders perpetrated. The film ends with an official investigation underway, and does not depict a trial or conviction. Kurt Loder wrote in 2007 that "all five of the soldiers involved (in the rape and murder) were arrested and charged, and three have been tried and sentenced to 90, 100 and 110 years in prison."[21] In addition, at the time of the film's release, the alleged ringleader, Pfc. Steven Dale Green, was being tried in a federal court in Kentucky, reportedly facing the death penalty. Since then all legal proceedings have completed.

However, De Palma pointed out that the film itself is fictional; HDNet's lawyers told him he could not use anything real about the true event – he had to fictionalize it, and was not allowed to refer to the real event in any way.[22]

Political controversy

The film has attracted political controversy, with claims that it portrays U.S. soldiers in a negative light, and has contributed to anti-American sentiment in Iraq and elsewhere; for example the murders by Arid Uka. Sites like "boycottredacted.com" have accused Brian De Palma and the producer Mark Cuban of treason, and called for the general public to avoid watching the film. Republican Duncan Hunter, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee complained in a letter to the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America that the film "portrays American service personnel in Iraq as uncontrollable misfits and criminals" and "ignores the many acts of heroism performed by our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors in Iraq."[23] However, critic Kyle Smith opined that "De Palma isn't trying to insult the troops but illustrating how any war puts men in impossible situations."[14] De Palma has stated that the film provides a realistic portrait of U.S. troops and how "the presentation of our troops has been whitewashed" by media. He expected that its graphic images would stir public debate about the conduct of US soldiers.[24]

Commentator Bill O'Reilly has called for protests of Redacted and against Mark Cuban. O'Reilly claims that the film demeans US soldiers and may incite violence against them, and he has called on ticketholders to bring signs to Dallas Mavericks games and all theaters showing the movie, stating 'Support the Troops'.[25] Mark Cuban has responded, saying "The movie is fully pro-troops. The hero of the movie is a soldier who stands up for what is right in the face of adversity... I think that the concept that the enemy will see these films and use it as motivation is total nonsense. We have no plans of translating these movies to Arabic or other Middle Eastern languages...It's really easy to hate, its really hard to think issues through on their own merits. Anything that makes people think about issues is a good thing." Cuban also pointed out that, through the Fallen Patriots charitable fund that he set up and finances, over $2.5 million dollars has been donated to soldiers in need.[26] He went on to publish an email he received from a soldier wounded in Iraq, who wrote "they've already formed their opinions of us and very little we do or say is going to change their minds. One movie, regardless of its subject matter, is not going to overcome their personal feelings".[27]

Film reaction

During a New York Film Festival press conference for the film, De Palma mentioned that Redacted is itself redacted, due to Magnolia Pictures owner Mark Cuban "being disturbed" by the ending photo montage's imagery. A voice from the audience called out "That's not true"; with the speaker identifying himself as Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures. The producer of the film later appeared on stage to explain that the images were taken out not because they were disturbing, but because of concerns about the possibility that relatives of the dead persons appearing on the photographs might bring lawsuits for emotional distress and the like. Magnolia, he said, had been put in "an untenable legal position" making the movie uninsurable.[28]

In an interview conducted the day after the uproar at the press conference, Cuban said, "There is no way I am going to include images of people who have been severely wounded or maimed and killed when the possibility exists that their families could unknowingly see the images and recognize a loved one." He also said that Magnolia had offered De Palma the option of buying the film back from the distributor in order to release it himself and "absorb 100 percent of the risk", but that De Palma did not accept. DePalma responded, "That's not true. He never offered me that opportunity, he never answered my phone calls."[29]

2011 Frankfurt killing of U.S. airmen

On March 2, 2011, a man shot and killed two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany, and wounded two others, maiming one. The suspect was identified as a 21-year-old man, Arid Uka, a German citizen of Albanian descent, who had worked at the airport. Uka claimed that he shot the soldiers because of a video he had watched on YouTube the day before, which supposedly showed U.S. Army soldiers raping a Muslim Iraqi girl.[30] The March 6, 2011 edition of the German television show Spiegel TV Magazine identified the video as a clip from the movie Redacted.[31] In a confession, Arid Uka stated that he shot at the U.S. airmen because he believed that they were going to commit additional rapes based on what the video footage from Redacted had portrayed. [32] [33]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1185714-redacted/ Retrieved 2007-09-12
  2. ^ Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith. This film is a companion[citation needed] to an earlier film by De Palma, Casualties of War. "We have been silent about many crimes but we will not stand rape". The Guardian, 20 October 2006.
  3. ^ Josh White (July 3, 2006). "Ex-Soldier Charged in Killing of Iraqi Family". The Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  4. ^ Aloisi, Silvia (2007-08-31). ""Redacted" stuns Venice". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
  5. ^ Jason Solomons (2007-09-09). "Brutal Iraq film is Venice hit: Award for real-life story of rape by US soldiers". London: The Guardian.
  6. ^ "Redacted – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-11-26. [dead link]
  7. ^ a b Iraq war atrocity film Redacted bombs in US, The Daily Telegraph, Nov. 28, 2007.
  8. ^ a b Joe Garofoli (2007-11-23). "Iraq war is hell on the bottom line at the box office". San Francisco Chronicle.
  9. ^ http://backstage.blogs.com/unscripted/guest_actor_blogger/index.html
  10. ^ http://www.magpictures.com/presskit.aspx?id=dab18b1e-db72-457a-a4b5-f010673d1ca2
  11. ^ http://www.magpictures.com/resources/presskits/redacted/redactedfinalnotes.doc
  12. ^ http://www.magpictures.com/resources/presskits/redacted.zip
  13. ^ a b "De Palma Iraq Flick Bombs". New York Post. 2007-11-25. Retrieved 2007-11-25. [dead link]
  14. ^ a b Smith, Kyle (2007-11-16). "Battle-Scarred". New York Post. Retrieved 2007-11-16. [dead link]
  15. ^ Ebert, Roger (2007-11-16). "Redacted". RogerEbert.com.
  16. ^ Pilger, John (2010-02-11). newstatesman.com http://www.newstatesman.com/film/2010/02/pilger-iraq-oscar-american-war. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ^ "Redacted – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-05-19. [dead link]
  18. ^ "Redacted (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-11-25.
  19. ^ "Meilleurs films de l'année 2008 (Best Films of 2008)".
  20. ^ a b "Redacted (2007)". Box Office Mojo, LLC.
  21. ^ "Redacted: Battle Casualty" by Kurt Loder, MTV.com, Nov. 16, 2007, accessed Nov. 25, 2007.
  22. ^ Thompson, Anne (2007-09-04). "De Palma Defends Redacted From Venice". Variety.
  23. ^ "War film's portrayal of soldiers draws fire from GOP lawmaker". Washington Times. 2007-11-22.
  24. ^ Director De Palma disturbed over Iraq film edit Reuters October 19, 2007
  25. ^ BillOReilly.com: The O'Reilly Factor Flash
  26. ^ Mark Cuban (2007-09-04). "Me and Bill OReilly".
  27. ^ Mark Cuban (2007-11-17). "Subject: This soldiers perspective on the Redacted issue".
  28. ^ "Director De Palma disturbed over Iraq film edit" Reuters
  29. ^ Hattenstone, Simon (2008-03-08). "No one wants to know". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
  30. ^ "Antikriegsfilm soll Flughafen-Attentäter aufgestachelt haben". ECHO Online. 2011-03-11. Retrieved 2011-03-11.
  31. ^ "Attentat: Vergewaltigungsvideo Auslöser?". Bild. 2011-03-09. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  32. ^ German Islamist terrorist confesses and blames fake jihad rape video for inspiring his crime
  33. ^ Gordts, Eline (2012-02-10). "Arid Uka, Frankfurt Airport Shooter, Sentenced To Life". Huffington Post.

Listening

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