Battle for Haditha (2007)

Director Nick Broomfield, better known for his confrontational nonfiction exposés (BIGGIE & TUPAC, KURT & COURTNEY), turns his attention to fictional filmmaking with this documentary-like recreation of one of the many tragedies spawned by America's presence in Iraq. On November 19, 2005, a convoy of U.S. Marines was targeted by insurgents, resulting in the death of one of their soldiers. In retaliation, they went on a senseless rampage, slaughtering two dozen Iraqis, including many women and children. Though accounts vary as to what did, in fact, happen, it is clear that Broomfield didn't make BATTLE FOR HADITHA...
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as another angry rant against the American government. His ultimate purpose is more universal. He wants to show viewers the ugliness of war by placing them inside one particularly horrific situation, witnessing it from every angle. There are the innocent victims who are struggling to exist in a war zone that torments them on a daily basis. There are the insurgents themselves, including those who used to work legitimately in the government but who have begun to act lawlessly in order to preserve their dignity. Lastly, there are the American soldiers, who tend to get portrayed as senseless killers in war pictures like this. But in BATTLE FOR HADITHA, Broomfield doesn't take the easy way out and present two-dimensional clichés of war-movie bad guys. This is most evident with regard to Corporal Ramirez (Elliot Ruiz), who is battling stress and depression but can't get the help he desperately needs from his government. In a cast of nonprofessionals, Ruiz is an outright revelation, providing the film with an unexpected amount of heart and soul. BATTLE FOR HADITHA proves that Nick Broomfield doesn't always have to make his presence known to create a powerful, disturbing work.
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'Battle for Haditha' is gebaseerd op waargebeurde feiten en focust op het drama dat zich op 19 november 2005 afspeelde, toen door Amerikaanse soldaten 24 Iraakse burgers dood werden geschoten. De verantwoordelijke commandant kreeg eerst een medaille hiervoor, maar toen het een groot Amerikaans schandaal werd, werden de commandant en zijn team vervolgens aangeklaagd wegens volkerenmoord.

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The fate of two cultures becomes locked on a tragic collision course in director Nick Broomfield's dramatization of the events that led to the massacre of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children by American Marines. A squadron of American soldiers goes speeding across the Iraqi desert in a convoy of armored Humvees, eventually stopping at a local store where the soldiers jump out to stretch and browse the DVD selection. Meanwhile, as the Marines strike up a conversation with the young male clerk behind the counter, two Iraqi men climb into the back of a pick-up truck to get a crash course in IED mechanics. Both the Mar...
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ines and the Iraqis are simply going about their daily business as usual, just doing their best to survive in a land where war is just another fact of life. For the Marines it's all about patrolling the desert and waiting for the next bomb to go off. When a roadside IED kills one Marine and wounds two others, the vengeance with which the American soldiers strike back at the locals may cause even the most hard-line warhawks to take pause and consider the true cost of a war which has no end in sight.
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November 19th, 2005, Haditha, Iraq. Iraqi insurgents bomb a convoy of US Marines, resulting in the death of their most popular officer. Enraged by this loss, his young Marine buddies carry out a brutal retaliation. Their violent house-searches lead to the massacre of 24 people, many of whom are women and children--tragic casualties of a war they cannot control. The Marines too are victims, attacked, wounded, and forced to respond in the way they have been trained. But when events occur at great speed and under extreme stress, can Marines in the line of fire be accused of murder?

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