Nonureva Really Surprised!

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

SnoopyStyle It's July 2002. After serving in Afganistan, First Lieutenant Mike Scotti volunteers to extend his term in the Marines to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is part of the Marine drive from Kuwait to Baghdad. He brings along a mini-camera to film starting from his shipping over to his return back to the States. It's a world of long waits and harrowing near-death action. It is raw. The guys have no filter. Mike's reasons for volunteering are duty, loyalty and even revenge for the sister of an acquaintance lost during 9/11. This is bottom up, not top down. These men are simply following orders. They are not political and accept their president's orders without question. The chaos and confusion is palpable as the initial welcome from Baghdad residents quickly fades. It's a compelling watch even in the future for its historical value.

drippee2000 I loved this movie! I am writing on my husbands site but saw this movie and as the mother of an 82 Airborne young man who was over there and was wounded in a battle at AS Samawa on 3-31-2003, I can relate better to just what my son went through. He too brought back a video with the battle and his whole year there from the beginning and I didn't quite understand the bad words used by him and his unit or the way they talked about Iraq in such a negative manner. My neighbors son was also there in the 101st with the Army and he was the same way. I guess the young men and women who went through this war or any war live and talk different while they are in the heat of the moment and regular people back here just do not understand that, given what they see from the media. My son is OK now and I hope that all the people we have over in the middle east and Afghanistan can get home safe and sound asap God love every one of them

in1984 Iraq from the front-lines. No setup, no objective, no talking heads, no "predetermined narrative", just an actual soldier filming actual war and recording actual news and politics as he goes into and fights the war.The director and editors do an impressive job keeping the film fast paced and connected without falling into a simple time line of video camera shots and comments from the troops' point of view. So it's a bit more interesting and developed than the average Wikileaks video. Important context is seamlessly added to provide perspective.All sorts of insights in this documentary, from the motivation of troops becoming soldiers, to their motivations going into the war, to their motivations as they fight it. It also captures much of the brutal and nasty nature of war. While it's sympathetic to the troops, it's hard to describe it as a sympathetic documentary.Watch, cringe, learn, laugh, understand.

njmollo As stated in Severe Clear or This Is War, a grunt does not need to know why they fight but will go anywhere their President sends them.... .....but did not that very same grunt have to ask why they would "volunteer" to join the military? Could it be that the grunt was "forced" into the military because they could not afford an education, health care or find a decent paying job?The truth of the invasion of Iraq is that it was sold to the public on a big lie yet Severe Clear refuses to honour the truth and instead tries to support the lie. Here the Iraqi people welcome the invaders. Here there are weapons of mass destruction. Here there are the biological weapons.Considering the extraordinary opportunity to capture unique footage from a grunts perspective Severe Clear shows us nothing we have not already seen and tries to frame it into a predetermined narrative. We learn nothing of how it really feels to be a soldier in the field. We don't get to know any of the characters that make up the Marine detachment. We don't see the real impact of bombs on the Iraq people or the desecration of Iraqi historical sites. We don't see the indiscriminate brutality the Iraqis face at the hands of the dehumanised troops. We don't see the copious drug taking by US soldiers or the rampant privatisation and commercialisation of war. We don't learn that over one million Iraq people have been killed since the invasion.For a better perspective of the Iraq invasion in general, the documentaries Why We Fight (2005) and the superb No End in Sight (2007) are recommended. For a grunts perspective of the invasion, then the drama Generation Kill (2008) is recommended as it has more to say about the Iraq war and the soldiers experience than anything so far filmed on the subject.