Review of Sand Castle (2017) by Private U — 03 Aug 2017

One of the best films set during the Iraq War. Very human, very even-handed. Largely underplayed so that the moments of extremity have real urgency and immediacy. Probably not a film for people who like their war movies to be gung-ho over-the-top action adventures with beefy marines shouting at each other non-stop and lacking any social complexity.

The dilemmas of the US soldiers and the Iraqi civilians overlap movingly as the former try to provide water for the people whose supply the destroyed. As one of the civilians says, they both want the same thing: "Water, and for you to go home.

" At another point young Pvt. Ocre is admiring the work of the volunteer Iraqi mechanical engineer who studied at the university in Mosul. When the Iraqi asks him if he went to university, Ocre replies that he didn't have enough money.

"You have to pay to study?" asks the engineer in surprise, "It's not free?" The soldiers and the civilians all emerge as human beings caught up in a hell of someone else's creation, while the enemy remain largely hidden and anonymous.

Logan Marshall-Green and Nicholas Hoult are both very good, as are the supporting soldier and civilian cast. Henry Cavill is pretty wooden but luckily has little to do.