Review of Redacted (2007) by Michael S — 19 Nov 2007

Never fully warmed to the films of Brian De Palma so I guess this is just par for the course. I like what he was trying to do, 'embedded' the truth in the interplay of multiple media-explicit perspectives, blogs, handicams, faux-docs, and for the first thirty minutes or so the film is building up to something worth the conceit, but it is bogged down by the lackluster characters, acting, the overwhelming artifice that seeps in everywhere.

and when the 'real' component is added to the film at the very end, much like what I felt about Into The Wild with its one 'real' photograph of the protagonist, there was even less to value in the contrivances De Palma employs.

The raw reality always trumps the assembled dramatic re-enactment.