Restrepo (Tim Hetherington/Sebastian Junger, 2010): USA

Reviewed By Nick Hincapie. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011

Restrepo is the newest documentary set in Afghanistan. The film is directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger and they tell the story of the Second Platoon in Korengal Valley. The film does a very good job of showing how the battles in Afghanistan felt and feels very realistic which is no surprise because the movie is produced by National Geographic.

In the film we see a group of American Soldiers deployed into Afghanistan. We see the men from the first day that they’re deployed up to the time when they can return home. The soldiers main goal in the film is to clear out the Korengal Valley and to gain the trust of the people. We get a pretty good feeling of what these guys went through in the first fifteen minutes of the film as we can see how bad surroundings must feel and how hot it must be out there.  Throughout the film we see several villagers and soldiers die and it becomes quite devastating in the end.

I thought that this was a very powerful and moving documentary and also shot very well. At the end of the screening I felt like I now knew how it must be to to fight in the war and the pain of the aftermath as well. There are several scenes in the film that show intense battles and many deaths which just makes the film more compelling. The directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger do an excellent of showing the audience the different obstacles that these men went through and the deserve full praise for their direction.

I don’t watch to many documentaries because I can never find any good ones playing in a theater near me but when I do get the chance to see one I am very moved by them. For me a documentary isn’t good unless it’s able to change your perspective on life somehow and a film like “Restrepo” successfully accomplished that. In way “Restrepo” is kind of the “The Hurt Locker” because it shows what war does to men while they’re fighting and when they return home and struggle to reconnect with society.

The film was recently nominated For Best Documentary at the Oscars and deserves but i’m not sure if it deserves to win because I have not seen any of the other nominees so any one of them could be great. If your looking for film that will give you a good look of what goes on in Afghanistan I highly recommend you watch this film so you know.