The War Tapes (2006)

98% of critics liked it
(64 reviews)
81% of users liked it
(1,580 ratings)

Three soldiers offer viewers a close-up and deeply personal view of the war in Iraq in this documentary. Filmmaker Deborah Scranton gave digital video cameras to three National Guard volunteers who were called up for duty in Iraq and asked them to keep a visual diary of what they saw and how they… More Three soldiers offer viewers a close-up and deeply personal view of the war in Iraq in this documentary. Filmmaker Deborah Scranton gave digital video cameras to three National Guard volunteers who were called up for duty in Iraq and asked them to keep a visual diary of what they saw and how they felt about it. The three men who took Scranton up on her offer were Sgt. Zack Bazzi, Spc. Mike Moriarty, and Sgt. Steve Pink. Bazzi is a Lebanese immigrant who previously fought in Bosnia and Kosovo and loves the thrill of battle, though he has serious reservations about the nature of the American occupation and feels most of his fellow soldiers are dangerously unaware of the habits and customs of the Iraqis. Moriarty is a husband and father who volunteered for service after the terrorist attacks of September 11; he's a proud warrior and loyal to his fellow soldiers, though he's come to hate the sting of battle. And Pink is a carpenter and would-be writer who joined the Guard to help raise money for college; his dark sense of humor often rises to the surface as he confronts the uglier aspects of the conflict. Scranton took the footage shot by the soldiers (sometimes uploaded by Internet just hours after a battle) and fashioned it into a story of three different men united by a single cause who are fiercely loyal to their fellow fighting men and women, even as they become increasingly cynical about the causes and motivations behind the war. The War Tapes was screened in competition at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 36 min.
Directed By: Deborah Scranton
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Jun 2, 2006 Wide
On DVD: Apr 24, 2007
Studio: SenArt Films

Critic Reviews

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times
Arguably the most vital and eye-opening documentary yet made regarding the United States' current military entanglement.
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
The film is one of the most urgent and immediate nonfiction works we may ever see.
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle
No matter what you think of the U.S. presence in Iraq, the film will disturb or startle or dismay you.
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
A riveting firsthand look at the conflict on the battlefield, in the barracks, and on the home front, unfiltered by any partisan prejudice.
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A remarkable film, a you-are-there document that allows us to worry about the soldier who's risking his life even as we ponder the rights and wrongs of this military engagement.
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
The documentary camera has made repeated trips to occupied Iraq, but never to such raw and honest effect as in The War Tapes.
Jay Antani, Cinema Writer
The direct-cinema authenticity that a soldier's eye gives to this largely street-fought war...lends The War Tapes its primary strength.
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Intentionally or not, the movie locates a strain of ignorance to go along with the bravery
Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly
They expected tension; what they didn't expect was to serve out their year-long deployment as, essentially, the world's most targeted grocery store security.
Karina Longworth, Cinematical
The director has managed to shape real people's lives into a drama, without imposing ideological filters, and without sacrificing what makes them real.
Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
If the in-country chaos has beginnings and endings, its effects are, as Steve Pink says, "lasting."
Rex Roberts, Film Journal International
Gripping, boring, disturbing, amusing, enlightening and frustrating.
Tom Keogh, Seattle Times
This is an important film, but be prepared for shocks.
William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A scary diary of their increasingly dehumanized daily lives (mostly spent protecting supply convoys on the dangerous highways) and the movie evokes the futile larger war around them in a series of haunting images.
Wade Major, Boxoffice Magazine
What's here speaks for itself, and what it says is often surprising and deeply unsettling, regardless of one's political leanings.
Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
Informative as most of the partisan-produced, anti-war documentaries that we've seen in the last several years have been, none match this one for its wide-ranging scope and lived-it-at-ground-zero truth.
Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat
...it would make a great double bill with the recent My Country, My Country, which looks at things from the other side.
Tim Grierson, L.A. Weekly
The film succeeds because of its refreshingly low-key emotional approach and its refusal to impose character arcs or political agendas on its subjects' footage.
Ross Anthony, Hollywood Report Card
Universally Worthwhile -- not just as a documentary on this war. But as a documentary on this war, I think it's quite interestingly balanced.
Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A painfully intimate snapshot of who they are, the damage they inflict on an unseen enemy and what they endure while doing so, in all its absurd, dehumanizing and ennobling contradictions.

Read all 22 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Jeff B

Beat novelist and World War II veteran Jack Kerouac ceaselessly typed his second book onto tele-type paper taped together in one continuous scroll, such that the final product proved to be one expansive manic sentence. Thanks to the graces of his gifted editor, that sentence became On… More
Beat novelist and World War II veteran Jack Kerouac ceaselessly typed his second book onto tele-type paper taped together in one continuous scroll, such that the final product proved to be one expansive manic sentence. Thanks to the graces of his gifted editor, that sentence became On the Road, the now-classic tome on a search for identity in post-war America. Director Deborah Scranton had no less of a challenge in editing someone else's vision into the stark war narrative The War Tapes, in which she effectively communicates the incommunicable: War is a Hell that continues once the fighting has stopped. Culmed from over 700 hours of footage shot by three members of a National Guard deployment in Iraq, The War Tapes smartly forsakes a documentary format's supposed objectivity for a frank immersion into what may be one of America's darkest hours. Given a director's individual political, philosophical, and religious convictions, objectivity in documentaries proves an impossibility anyway, especially considering how awash our culture is in the subjective American media. The soldiers take notice of this and the corporate profiteers, testament to Scranton's choosing her narrators well, an astute mix of humor, pathos, courage, and, yes, hope. When Audie Murphy so wisely quipped "War is hell," there came the aspersion that heaven might also exist within the same continuum. Juxtaposing footage from the frontlines of war-torn Iraq with that of families on the homefront, The War Tapes only shows us that the same maudlin spirit seems to permeate the collective mindset-especially after the soldiers return as changed men-a telling commentary on how weary and identity-challenged our embattled society may have become. Bottom Line: A stark and frank home movie from Hell-on-Earth.