RESTREPO (2010) (***1/2)

There have been many documentary films made about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of them put the viewer into the war from such a first-hand perspective as this one. American journalist Sebastian Junger and British photojournalist Tim Hetherington embedded themselves with the Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team for an entire 15-month deployment. They went on missions with the soldiers in the Korengal valley, which was called the deadliest place on Earth.

The film's title comes from PFC Juan S. Restrepo, a Colombian-born naturalized American soldier who was killed early in the deployment. One of the goals of the deployment was to build an advanced outpost, which the soldiers named OP Restrepo. For a year and a quarter, these soldiers are under fire on a daily basis. They're official mission is to clear the area of insurgents and build relationships with the locals. But it's clear that the individual soldiers have a different mission — do their job and get out alive.

Many of the surviving soldiers are interviewed afterwards. They are in agreement that the worst part of their deployment was Operation Rock Avalanche where they went strong into a Taliban controlled area and took fire from every direction. Only one of the men actually saw a Taliban fighter on the mission and he was pointing a rocket launcher at him. Junger and Hetherington put he viewer in several firefights throughout the film. We never see where the bullets are coming from. It's frightening.

Some of the soldiers emerge as characters. Prominently to me was Capt. Dan Kearney. He gives his men pep talks that would sound canned only if Kearney didn't believe every word he was saying. He rallies his men with revenge. They will hunt down the men who killed their friends and get even. When he meets with local elders, who look like they live in their harshest conditions in the world, he shows off his frustration with constant insurgent presence in the area. They're all supposed to be working together for God's sake. Something makes me think his unmovable, curse-filled approach to dealing with respected men twice his age isn't going to win hearts and minds to his way of looking at things. But his focused approach seems paramount to surviving firefights when others start succumbing to emotion.

One incident underlines the uphill battle the soldiers are dealing with. An elder comes to complain that one of his cows has gotten stuck in the American's razor wire and died. He wants a cash reimbursement. A soldier asks his superior about the request. The best the U.S. is willing to do is give the elder rice, beans and sugar that amount to the value of the cow. From the American perspective this is no different than cash. But from the Afghan perspective that rice, beans and sugar will be consumed in months, while a cow could produce milk and village status for years.

The Oscar-nominated film doesn't take political sides. It shows soldiers doing the job that has been given them. Under great danger, the soldiers build OP Restrepo from nothing to a strategic outpost that takes the high ground on the enemy. After it's over, the men have a hard time talking about those they lost, knowing that it so easily could have been them. As the film closes, we are told that U.S. troops withdrew from the Korangal valley in 2010. It's hard not to wonder what the point of it all is.