Gunner Palace is a unique type of documentary about the current conflict in Iraq. It strays from the typical in-your-face documentaries which love centering on the politics, the strategies, and the violence of war. Gunner Palace instead turns its cameras onto the individual soldiers and their stories. This is a film not meant to shock you with horrific images of the battlefront nor is it a patriotic movie glamorizing the strife of men at war. It is just calm enough to keep it away from an R rating, but it is just engrossing enough for you to realize the severe nature of the fact that these men are living day to day with their lives at risk. It is a down-to-earth film whose mood goes from lighthearted to dismal without needing to scare the viewer. As the film progresses, you hear the stories of a number of different soldiers' lives- from the 19 year old soldier so proud to be a combat veteran at such a young age to the electric guitar player who's become close friends with an older Iraqi man. We see our troops as the media would never show them: partying in Udei Hussein's bombed out palace, shuffling around their room trying to kill vermin with a broom, and playing heavy metal guitar in their off time. Our troops aren't over there surrounded by death all the time. They joke around with one another, party, and worry about how when they arrived, Iraqis cheered them in the streets ,while now children heave stones at them from afar. Yet despite the slightly upbeat mood in the earlier portions of the film, the movie gets real serious: soldiers start to die. While none of the deaths are seen on camera, there's an ethereal quality to knowing their fate. These weren't actors, and unlike your standard Hollywood Blockbuster, you won't see those men back in any other films next year. This reviewer personally thinks that the preceding message encompassed the general message of the film. To the viewer, Gunner Palace may be a shocking documentary talked about amongst friends and family, but that may be it. To us back home, the war is just another feature film. We tend to forget that there are real people behind the mask of the American battlefront. Gunner Palace is a little reminder of that. 

Sure to please: Concerned Americans 

Sure to Disappoint: Action junkies. 

Release Date: June 28, 2005 

Gunner Palace (DVD)
Studio:Palm Pictures
Rating:
 

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