Rating:  

Documentary Featuring The Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the United States Army.
___________________________

Director: Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Rating: R
Running Time: 93 Mins.
Release Date: June 25, 2010
Home Video Date: December 7, 2010
Box Office: $1.3 Million
___________________________

Outpost Films and National Geographic Entertainment.

There are countless moments in the unshakable documentary “Restrepo” which I will never forget, but a couple of related moments have remained with me in the months since seeing the film. Near the end of the film, after serving a brutal and life changing 15 month deployment in Eastern Afghanistan, the soldiers of the 503rd Infantry Regiment are informed that they will be going home. One soldier, in particular, stands with his fellow soldiers but instead of cheering or high-fiving his brothers in arms, he stares down at the ground, seemingly as lost as he has ever been. Earlier, another soldier was asked, after being shot at, how and/or if he could ever resume a civilian life after his deployment. His answer was simply – “I don’t know.” The naivete of that answer and the vacant stares of a lost man faced with the fears of returning to a normal kind of life are just two indelible moments in Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s documentary “Restrepo”.

A disquieting film, “Restrepo” is vital, important, and as unique a documentary that one will ever find regarding the conflict of war; both in practice and the psychological devastation of it. Co-directors and journalists Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger achieved remarkable access in embedding with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who are sent to fight in the dangerous Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan. Headed to a place dubbed “the most dangerous place on Earth”, the soldiers leave fearless, cocksure, and ready, willing, and eager to defend their country in any capacity required of them.

And then they arrive there – in a barren and isolated landscape where the soldiers must not only converse with and gain the trust of the local clerics and inhabitants of the Valley, but also be constantly aware that at any moment and at any time, they may take fire, be under attack, and possibly never make it back home.

Stripped of any pretense, Hetherington and Junger are literally documenting each and every moment they can with these 20 soldiers. After we learn of the loss of a soldier, Juan Restrepo, we witness the soldiers defiantly building an outpost in his honor, named OP Restrepo. Hetherington and Junger place us in the trenches, we take fire, and witness the military’s clumsy and awkward attempts to reason and deal with the cultural divides between soldier and native. By eschewing the traditional narrative approach and carefully and concisely reconstructing the 15 months spent with the Combat Team, we are given insight the likes of which may have never been shared before.

“Restrepo” is a visceral watch and one that grabs you and will not and cannot let go. Infused with interviews with many of the soldiers while they wait to head back home, the emotions are raw and unfiltered – Hetherington and Junger positioning the cameras in a tightly framed series of talking head closeups, which afford us a rare opportunity to see every wincing memory and emotional effect on these idealistic and brave young men. What they thought they knew is now in doubt, the effects of war having tore through them quick and clinical. There is no agenda or political partisanship on display and having the politic of the Afghanistan War integrated into the film would easily snuff out “Restrepo”‘s power and impact. Rather, Hetherington and Junger, both war journalists who have embedded before, know that in a controversial war in controversial times, sometimes the images speak for themselves.

As a film which provides a visual window to the world of one of the most significant elements of ongoing American and world history, “Restrepo” is a groundbreaking achievement and one of the finest films of 2010.

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

This is one of the more remarkable films of any type to arrive in recent memory. Many veterans who have seen the film have remarked that “Restrepo” finally illustrates, to those who have never served, a fair and honest look at what soldiers in combat experience. The movie never finds a false note and is unshakably moving and powerful.

NO

The film is intense and those sensitive to war will likely find this too difficult and uncomfortable to watch.