Rampage

This eye-opening and gripping documentary by the Australian war reporter George Gittoes emerged from his earlier Iraq film, ‘Soundtrack to War’. One charismatic, rapping soldier, Elliot Lovett, caught Gittoes’ eye and he travelled in 2004 to the suburb of Brown Sub in Miami to meet the 23-year-old’s brothers (Alton, Marcus and Denzell) and extended family, all of whom turn out to be as creative as Elliot – despite living in a dangerous urban backwater that operates as a virtual war-zone.

Gittoes’ quiet thesis – filmed with a reporter’s brio and cut to a hip hop soundtrack – is to present a war on America’s doorstep. Gittoes treats the Lovett family with straightforward respect and acts a spokesman for their ambitions. He loves their music, and he’s both fascinated and concerned by the violence at the centre of their lives. ‘Rampage’ takes some unexpected and horrible turns, and is often upsetting, but Gittoes stays compassionate, never judges and even admits that his film may be an intervention too far in the lives of these vulnerable foot soldiers who stare death in the face daily.