It's been many years since the cherubesque '80s Michael J. Fox co-starred with Sean Penn in Brian DePalma's Casualties of War. Dealing with the atrocious realities of the Vietnam War, the film detailed the true story of a girl taken from her village by American troops and kept as a sex slave until she's killed to cover the soldiers' tracks. In step with Fox's hero reputation, his character refuses to rape the girl, and later speaks out, determined to bring justice to the perpetrators of the terrible act. Working witha terribly similar recent real-life occurance where a young Iraqi girl was raped and murdered, DePalma has decided to re-visit the theme with his new film, Redacted.The film gets its name from the term used to refer to edited text -- often documents edited to cover classified or sensitive information with those lovely, scribbled black bars. The particulars of the Al-Mahmudiyah Incident are as follows: Five US Soldiers have been accused of murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl's parents and 5-year-old sister before gang-raping and murdering the young girl as well. While one has been sentenced, the others are facing court martial and charges.
Unlike the fictional Casualties, Redacted will be heavily steeped in real information, using The Queen's approach to real-life narrative. According to Production Weekly, the movie will employ news broadcasts, trial coverage and also internet video from YouTube and, believe it or not, one of the solder's video blogs. The already-disturbing story will probably gain gut-punch intensity from the mixture of fictional narrative and real footage -- a strong reminder of the reality of the situation, and one that should keep it from being dismissed as 'mere' fiction.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-05-2007 @ 6:04PM
Jack Burton Says said...
Leave it to Hollywood to remind the world and their fellow Americans just what evil scumbags we Americans are, and how the world would be so much better off if it wasn't for us. I mean, in a war filled with the kind of terrorist scum that cuts off people's heads on live TV and young men and women barely out of their teens fighting a futile war at the behest of a foolish President, De Palma and Hollywood would rather focus on 5 scummy kids who decide to rape a girl. I mean, rape doesn't happen anywhere else, right? And even if it did, why make a movie about it, if you can't stick it to your fellow Americans and let the rest of the world know how evil Americans are in the process. Christ, no wonder the terrorists want to wipe us off the face of the Earth; De Palma and his hate-America first Hollywood ilk keeps giving them reason after reason. Besides this crap, you have 50,000 "documentaries" documenting the evils of America since 9/11.
Of course it needs to be said: Only in America could you get away with making, getting away with, and profiting from such American bashing.
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1-06-2007 @ 2:13PM
Richard von Busack said...
Precisely! What this atrocity needs is to be swept under the rug.
Not many people have seen Casualties of War, but it's very strong stuff, and it justifies de Palma's reputation-- a reputation that's under siege even in the best of times...
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1-07-2007 @ 3:52AM
marty said...
I don't see the point of making this film. Out of 140,000 troops, there are a handful of psyhotic scum who raped and murdered and now Brian De Palma is going to make the movie just as a US-bashing film. What about Hollywood making a film where the Muslim extremists are actually delusional psychopaths and the damage they inflict with their suicide bombings which kill innocent women and children? We don't about the other atrocities committed by Muslim extremists to their own people including women and children because it is never reported. The western media continue to pander to these extremists and ther very coverage of the war helps the extremists' cause better than any of their own terrorist attacks ever do. Of course, Hollywood is also only very willing to pander to them as well.
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