Bellicose at the Box Office

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Outside the realm of documentaries, the Iraq war and the more general war on terror have been conspicuously absent from the cinema. For a medium that prides itself on reflecting society and world culture, this corner of our modern reality — casualties on the battlefield, Homeland Security alerts back home — has been, with rare exception, ignored.

But as is often the case with Hollywood, as soon as one studio puts forth the idea, a parade of others rushes to follow. If 1997 was the year of the volcano movie, 1998 was the year of the asteroid movie, and 2006, with such dark visions as “V for Vendetta,” “Children of Men,” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” was the year of the apocalyptic film, then welcome to the fall of 2007: the season of the war-on-terror film.

It’s a trend that took flight last Friday with the emotional “In the Valley of Elah,” the Tommy Lee Jones vehicle written and directed by Oscar wunderkind Paul Haggis, about a veteran father searching for his missing soldier son, who has just returned from service in Iraq. The conflicts in the Middle East arise again in “The Kingdom,” an action film arriving September 28, about an FBI agent (Jaime Foxx) who assembles an elite team to respond to a deadly bombing that targeted Americans in our supposed ally, Saudi Arabia.

It’s “Lions for Lambs,” however, that mixes the message with sheer star power, featuring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford (who also directs) in a calculated, big-budget political talker set for a November 9 release. Based on an investigation involving two American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, the movie stars Mr. Cruise as a congressman, Ms. Streep as an investigative journalist, and Mr. Redford as the professor who first encouraged the two young soldiers into active duty, all pontificating on America’s involvement in the war.

Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” currently slated for late November, focuses on the ways in which media and technology influence our perception of the war and come to dictate the political rhetoric back home. Billed as a “fictional documentary” about the March 2006 rapes and murders committed by American troops in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, the movie is reportedly told only through snippets of recorded, downloaded, or redacted media, evoking the ways in which news filters lead to censorship and misinformation.

The similarly titled but wildly different “Rendition” (October 19) abandons the battlefield in favor of a wider discussion about the American intelligence community. Featuring a cast that includes Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin, and Ms. Streep, the movie zeroes in on a CIA agent who starts questioning his orders during an unorthodox interrogation of a suspected terrorist, a man taken into custody through the controversial interrogation policy of “extraordinary rendition.” Director Gavin Hood tackles three sides of the puzzle, jumping among the terrified American wife of the suspect, the conflicted officer who begins to question the morality of going by the book, and the unflinching higher-ups who unflinchingly pass down orders.

James C. Strouse’s “Grace Is Gone” (October 5) ignores policy for the more personal drama. The film stars John Cusack as a man who decides to take his two young daughters on a long car journey after his wife is killed on the battlefields of the Middle East.

While a number of notable Iraq-centric documentaries have dotted the landscape this year, led by the scathing, policy-minded “No End In Sight” (which continues to show in the city after almost two months at theaters in both the East Village and Lincoln Center), we are still awaiting the opening of perhaps the most haunting documentary of them all. Alex Gibney, the director nominated for an Oscar for “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” made waves at last spring’s Tribeca Film Festival with “Taxi to the Dark Side” (no release date yet announced), a horrific account of one Afghan taxi driver’s abduction, incarceration, and brutal execution at the hands of American forces. Using that one episode as a springboard, Mr. Gibney probes the ambiguous rules governing America’s interrogation techniques and the troubled inner workings of such places as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use