Brian De Palma

Redacted Brian De Palma

Director Brian De Palma, whose CASUALTIES OF WAR addressed a horrific tragedy that occurred during the Vietnam war, turns his attention to Iraq with an unfortunately similar tale. Inspired by true events, REDACTED follows a group of soldiers who are stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) is an aspiring filmmaker who is intent on capturing his experience on videotape. His fellow soldiers--Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll), Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney), and Gabe Blix (Kel O’Neill)--seem to be surprisingly well-adjusted at first, but it isn't long before their true colours come through. When Reno decides to get drunk and harass an Iraqi family, the situation devolves into rape and murder, putting an incredible strain on Lawyer, who wants to expose Reno but doesn’t want to rat out a fellow soldier.


In making REDACTED, De Palma embraced the various forms of technology that have allowed soldiers to connect with Americans back home: video cameras, blogs, YouTube, etc. The result is a fictional documentary that feels immediate and experimental, incorporating first-person video perspectives, security cameras, and a variety of other techniques to tell its tragic tale. De Palma is clearly unhappy with the developments in Iraq, and he wants the world to know that he doesn't support the war. REDACTED will certainly never be misconstrued as a pro-war film. This is a challenging work that attacks the very nature of the American presence in Iraq.