THE WAR TAPES Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
SenArt Films/ Scranton/Lacy Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Deborah Scranton
Cast: Steve Pink, Zack Bazzi, Mike Moriarty
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 5/10/06
Opens: June 2, 2006 One of the principal performers in Deborah Scranton’s in-your-face documentary film, the first movie actually taped by soldiers themselves and not by embedded journalists, states that he would not go back to Iraq for $500,000. This makes one wonder: would you put on a uniform, grab and M-16 and fight for Iraqi freedom (or oil or money or whatever), for that sum of money? Interestingly, of the 3 soldiers who signed on to wear digital cameras on their helmets, on dashboards or on gun turrets, there is quite a diversity of opinion. One guy actually looks forward to going back to combat, which perhaps doesn’t say a lot about his life at home. The three soldiers chosen by director Scranton are not hillbillies with 3rd-grade educations, but smart, university-trained people, at least one of whom supports Bush while the others would not directly say one way or the other. Yet when one soldier challenges the idea that we’re in Iraq as a steppingstone to democratize the Middle East–holding that we’re there for the oil and the money–he actually justifies this motive! The participants chosen by Deborah Scranton are from Charlie Company, heading for Iraq when members of the New Hampshire National Guard are called up. They are not kids who are unemployed and so poorly educated that their career choices are limited. Steve Pink, for example, is a twenty-four year-old carpenter who’d rather be a writer. He joined the Guard to get money for college, though one wonders why he could not obtain the funds from his carpentry. Mike Moriarty, who is all of thirty-five years-old and with a wife and kids and home, would have no material reason for joining but is a sincere patriot. He was dismayed and disgusted by 9/11 and wanted to do his share to fight America’s enemies. If Moriarty defies credibility in that age-wise he is over-the-hill as a fighting man and that he has a family, Zack Bazzi is even more of a puzzle. He is a Lebanese-American who appears fluent in Arabic as well as in English and could have been better used as a translator, perhaps even have a career in the CIA, rather than becoming simply another grunt in the field whose translations are valuable only to a small group in his unit. By his admission, he loves combat, as attested by his serving in Bosnia and Kosovo, and he decries the fact that the American soldiers have not been trained in cultural differences. They do not know, for example, that a outstretched palm means “hello” to the Iraqis and not “stop,” so one need not wonder why some Arabs have been killed for ostensibly defying orders to halt. (I’m reminded of cultural stupidity by the film “Goal! The Dream Begins,” which features a group of Mexicans sneaking across the border to California, only to hear the border patrol shout “Stop, this is the border control. Stay where you are!”–in English.) Eight hundred hours were taped, some of the copies uploaded on computers using Quicktown. A year was spent editing the workload down to 97 minutes. Some of the best shots were taken at night, the screen enveloped in green, mortars hitting the Humvees suddenly, spreading devastation to men who until then are engaged in cracking jokes and teasing one another. During the day, some of the men would communicate with the kids, with Zack Bazzi translating. The youngsters look disappointed when “Gimme 5" does not mean that each of them would be getting five bucks but only a slap on the hand. Considerable footage takes us to the New Hampshire homes where we find an emotional mother of Zack in tears with worry for her boy, while another focuses on the girlfriend of Steve Pink who, when asked in an email to write something dirty came through by pasting photos of her face on the bodies in an issue of Husler magazine. One of the soldiers makes the grandiose statement that “all wars are fought for money,” which would be news to the likes of Osama bin Laden. The biggest criticism one might make is that director Scranton seems not to have elicited the belief from any of the men that the war is being fought for a lie: that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and whatever WMD’s he might have possessed in the distant future would not justify attacking Iraq at this time. Ultimately the film succeeds not because of what the people say but because of the first-hand, obviously unrehearsed look we get of what it’s like to be in hell.
“The War Tapes” won the Best Documentary Award at the
2006 Tribeca Film Festival. Not Rated. 97 minutes © 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
