Gunner Palace (movie review)

The war in Iraq, which technically is no longer a war, has been going on since March of 2003. Shortly after the fall of Baghdad, a documentary film maker went into Iraq to look closely at the troop situation on the ground, focusing on a segment housed in Uday Hussein's old palace. Called Gunner Palace, this film offers views of the situation in Iraq that are hopeful, frightening, sad, and desperate all at the same time.

There are a few things I find noting about this movie...the first is how obvious it was that the average troops serving us over there are fresh out of high school, usually from small and often poverty stricken towns. While they can't usually compare their towns to Iraq, they also don't have much of a visual idea of how to make it better. Some of these troops discuss the raids and attacks looking for insurgents in much the same way that they would discuss a cool method of killing someone in a video game. It makes you wonder, if that is the general mindset of troops on the ground, what kind of progress we can make with a post high school pre collegiate troop force.

Secondly, it brought to mind how much we have to fear with the situation in Iraq (not that anyone needs a reminder). This film was shot 4 years ago, and yet you can see the beginning of anti-US sentiment. Pro-Saddam uprisings happen a few times, and this is long before he was captured, let alone tried and hung for a worldwide audience. The population seems split over whether they want to attack the opposite sect of Islam (Sunni v. Shiite), the US troops, or the terrorists already working at both of the previous two.

The movie is told through the eyes of the cameraman, the adventures of the troops living in "Gunner's Palace," and the scenes and activities that pervade the street life of Iraq. Often, troops freestyle about their conditions. What's hard to comprehend is that now, three years later, it is likely that the majority of the stars of this film are either dead, injured, or on a second or maybe even third tour of duty in Iraq.

Finally, my ultimate shock, following on the heels of the previous documentary I reviewed here last week, was that this film was rated PG-13. It featured real life violence, some nudity and an exorbitant amount of vulgar language. I'm not sure if the idea here was to keep the rating low so that a majority of people could see this important film, or if it just slid by the MPAA, but I was shocked when I looked at some of movies rated PG-13, R and NC-17, compared this one and thought it deserved the R.

I watched another documentary last week that would bring tears to your eyes when you think of the impact, social strategy and overall genius of John Lennon, and just how much we could use him given our current global and political climate. Both Gunner Palace and US. v. John Lennon are worth your time and energy if you want to see something a little less fictional than your usual fare.