Film

Maybe Brian De Palma does follow the news from Iraq—just as he follows any developments in cool telephoto lenses or Hitchcock retrospectives. But to judge from Redacted, a lazy, high-def fakeumentary, his response to such weighty matters as occupation, abuse of power and rape is sputtering, awkward earnestness. He seems stunned by lies we’ve heard for years, lies better explained by at least a dozen other movies. Reality doesn’t exist in De Palma’s work—never has—so it’s ridiculous for this ultrastylish filmmaker to give up his swooping camera for fakey troop “interviews” conducted by grunts in tents (the uniformly mediocre cast is directed with a Nam-era woodenness), fakey shakycam footage of an unlawful midnight home invasion, and fakey Internet beheadings. Is De Palma only now discovering YouTube?

The lackadaisical plot, oddly underwhelming given the totality of the war’s misadventure, is inspired by a real-life 2006 incident in which U.S. soldiers raped and killed a teenager. Some of the men hoot and strip; some merely videotape. If that sounds a lot like Casualties of War, know that we’re back at the heart of De Palma’s implicit politics: the responsibility of the accidental voyeur. (John Travolta witnesses a Chappaquiddick-like political assassination in Blow Out; even last year’s execrable The Black Dahlia saved its most truthful moment for a private Hollywood screen test.) The quaint myth of the heroic filmmaker is De Palma’s most treasured trope. But has Abu Ghraib really made a difference? Merely showing isn’t enough anymore, and this director has never gone any further than that.