Restrepo Movie Review

When given the assignment to review a movie, I instantly thought of my six-year-old self. I thought of how funny my aunt thought it was that at the age of six I decided I wanted to be a film critic. Almost 24 years later, I have changed what I wanted to be several times, but my love of films has never changed. Therefore, when I got a film critique as an assignment, my mind became flushed with ideas of what movie to review. I searched the depth of my Netflix account to find a movie that would be easy for me to review, something that I could relate with on a personal level. I found a movie that, as a veteran of two tours to Iraq, moved me and reminded me of those years. I found the documentary Restrepo.  
Restrepo is the story of a platoon of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan's Korengal Valley to spend a year in the hot bed of Taliban activity.  The title comes from the first of the platoon’s causalities Juan “Doc” Restrepo, who is in the beginning of the film in home movies, joking with his friends and comrades. The remaining soldiers soon name their outpost after him and continue with their mission. The film crew follows the platoon through firefights and unnerving silence between those firefights. In those quiet moments of the film, the tension is comparable to that of any horror movie. The filmmakers show the frustration of both the soldiers and Afghanis trying to communicate with each other’s. The film also shows the roller coaster of emotions that the soldiers go through. Whether it is dancing in their barracks or reacting to the death of a comrade, you feel it with them.
The editing of the film is what makes it so authentic. I know authenticity is not an unusual quality in a documentary, however, the day-to-day aspects of war have never been offered to the public in such a real way. The soldiers, at one point in the film, have to explain to an Afghani man why they killed his cow and how he will be compensated. It was interesting to see something as mundane as the death of a cow take precedent in the middle of a war, but that is war. The scene prior to that exchange was a firefight, showing the randomness of the battlefield. The editing also shines in the interviews of the soldiers after they returned from deployment weaved into the documentary.  
The cinematography of the film adds to the overall mood. The Korengal Valley is vast and covered with trees, allowing the viewer to understand the frustration of not being able to see your enemy. While the cinematography at times leads you to believe the soldiers are trapped in an endless forest, at others, it feels isolated and claustrophobic. The film’s visuals push you into the depths of the valley, leaving you feel lost at times with those soldiers.
If this movie was not a documentary, I am sure that it would have garnered more acclaim. Very few movies have such compelling stories of frustration, anger, and perseverance. You laugh with the soldiers when they laugh, and you hurt when you watch them lose a friend. Restrepo leaves you understanding the complexity and harness that is war.  The movie reminds me of a quote from the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, “They all carried the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had a tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture”.