Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

Into the Valley of Death rode the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company, ultimately riding back out with their dignity, humanity and honor intact, a trial by firefight that this important documentary shows in vivid detail. Well, given the ferocity of the fighting, not all rode out. Killed early on was PFC Juan Restrepo. His brothers-in-arms named their forward operating post after him. Now the movie about their mission also bears his name, a worthy honor.

Boys enlist as soldiers for many reasons, though service to country is always in the mix. Restrepo reinforces that once in battle it isn’t about service, strategy or patriotism anymore. It’s about buddies living and dying together, watching out for each other during the most intense experience of their lives.

Restrepo deserves a silver star as the least political War on Terror movie yet, notwithstanding that it emerged from an article in antiwar magazine Vanity Fair, dates to the Bush era, and documents an ultimately failed campaign in a still uncertain Afghan war.

Hats off to all concerned. First to journalists Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, whose embedded video captures the platoon’s many highs, brave lows, tactical triumphs and ongoing tragedies, providing a fly-on-the-wall sense for the audience.

But mostly to Captain Dan Kearney’s Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. The dauntless courage and American spirit that lit up the Korengal Valley lights up this fast moving and entirely winning documentary.

Acting - Great 4.0

Captain Dan Kearney – a terrific military leader – personifies military honor. That’s him in the trailer, castigating himself over the death of civilians.

Film - Great 4.0

Sebastian Junger – famous for writing The Perfect Storm – clearly has a sense for men at work in the most dire of circumstances. His Vanity Fair article Into the Valley of Death provides the film’s narrative prologue.

The literary inspiration of the article’s title – Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade – reveals Vanity Fair’s jaundiced worldview about this – and most – US military operations.

Edge - Risqué 1.7

Almost no blood is seen, nor do I recall a single visible battle wound. Psychological wounds are described in vivid detail, which is quite enough to get a sense of the sacrifice these men made.

Reality - Natural 1.0

• War was hell long before celebrity journalists brought video cameras into battle, begging the question of how effectively highly self-aware soldiers in a hyper-documented army can continue to fight.¹ By way of historical comparison, one wonders if Washington could have defeated the British if there had been video cams at Valley Forge, or if Grant could have outlasted Lee at Petersburg if Vanity Fair journalists were in his camp?² Just imagine Vanity Fair getting ahold of that footage. We’d still be subjects of the British Crown and/or lamenting a regnant Confederacy.

• Soldiers have griped since the beginning of organized warfare, and it’s no different here. The movie captures plenty of mostly good natured griping and more than a little post-trauma stress. What’s interesting is that this Vanity Fair produced story doesn’t suggest anything nefarious about the intentions of the US Army, notwithstanding their strenuous and successful campaign to kill the bad guys who used the Korengal Valley as a hideout and smuggling route. Given VF’s solid antiwar reputation, the editors must have been disappointed.

¹ Islamists use modern recording and distribution in less self-aggrandizing ways, sending out YouTube beheadings and scary shit like that. Of course, that’s why they’re called terrorists. Or should be, anyway.

² That’s to say nothing of Rolling Stone journalists. BTW, had the Icelandic volcano not erupted, General McChrystal’s crew wouldn’t of been stuck in Paris with an antiwar journalist, and the special forces hero would still have his Afghan command. On such random occurrences, history turns.

1 Comment

• Wick Sep 11, 2011 2:07PM

  On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, props to the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company along withl the rest of the US Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard. Setbacks like those documented in Restrepo aside, you’re winning the War on Islamist Terror. History will be kind and free people everywhere will be grateful.

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