about Jim Scott

This is a film you should mark on your must-see list. Yes, it is a documentary but it is more. Yes, it is about the war in Afghanistan but it is not a war movie in the literary sense but in some other way. You get to tag along with a small group of grunts stuck on two different hilltops for their one year deployment. This is blue collar work of small units; hold a semi-permanent position and patrol from that strong point.  Hunker down at night and creep around during the day.

There is no cheap sentimentality here, just raw footage of what is it like to be on the ground in the Korengal Valley. The 96-minute film was distilled from a year’s worth of video.  As such it captures both the particular and the general about war. Fear and boredom. It certainly touched a nerve with me.

 There are post-deployment interviews with the individual soldiers interspersed through the movie. All the men put on a brave face; no one tears up. But you can still see straight through them.  Here is where you understand the experience, not from the brief fire-fights or common grab-ass on the outpost, but from reading those faces. And there is where this film shines. Do not miss this.  (This work should be migrating out of theatres soon and it must be viewed on the big screen. In San Diego, it is only in one theatre downtown.)

I made my 18-year son go with me about a week before I dropped him off for his first year of college.  I wanted him to see  how some other teenagers were spending the last years of their childhood.

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