Movie Review: Restrepo

I’ve been itching to see this movie and luckily, my art director/associate creative director partner/fellow movie enthusiast Ryan (Wired Tight) was psyched to go with me. We hit the very first showing of this film in Atlanta as we’re not sure it’s going to be around for very long.

Journalists Sebastian Junger (of Perfect Storm fame) and Tim Hetherington embedded with an army platoon for one year capturing what they could with video cameras. This platoon happened to be assigned to one of the deadliest places an American soldier can be: the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

This is a true documentary in that it simply tries to capture the reality of what these men go through. There isn’t much of a narrative arc or message trying to be relayed. Instead, it’s just a record of the men, the time and the place.

After taking some fire and attacks at their initial firebase, which they call the KOP, they patrol out to the top of a nearby mountain a mere 800 meters away and build another outpost. They name it Restrepo after one of their fallen comrades, killed during the beginning of their deployment. It’s weird to think that though only 800 meters away, the men at Restrepo consider themselves completely on their own and it becomes apparent that they are. If the men there get into some serious trouble, there is little the men at the KOP could do to help them.

That’s a great reality check for what the soldiers go through. This is hostile territory and though they try to reach out and build relationships with the locals, they make little headway.

Much of this film is of the shaky handheld variety and unlike most of the time you see this technique used, this is not merely for effect. The soldiers and journalists are running for their lives and trying to find cover. Not once do you ever see the enemy on screen. These men are living on the very razor’s edge; being under the constant threat of attack by an unseen enemy who are more at home with the locals than the soldiers. Interspersed with this action footage, there are quieter moments of the men on base and interviews with them after they’ve come back home. These moments of hindsight, as well as the way speaking about their memories hits them, are quite illuminating.

Speaking about one soldier’s gruesome death that hits him hard even after the deployment is over, one man tells how he can only hope to process the memory better in the future. Yet he says, “I never want to lose that memory because it’s one of the things that makes me appreciate everything I have.”

Powerful stuff. This is no ‘gung ho’ or ‘feel good’ movie. It is what it is. In this case, there’s a lot to be said for that.