Inconvenient Facts Derail “Battle For Haditha”

British cinema verite director Nick Broomfield’s film “Battle For Haditha” is joining the rest of the wannabe Iraq-exploitation movie failures at reaching audiences with anything resembling truth or interest.

Flacks for the film or anti-Iraq war causes treat the film as a docudrama, or even a sequel to Battle For Algiers(!), and current Hollywood denizens interviewed by Variety trot out excuses for the crop of Iraq war bashing films’ box-office non-appeal as due to war weariness. At least one Hollywood pro gets closer to a deeper truth, audiences don’t go for America and military-bashing films:

Producer James Jacks ("The Mummy" series) thinks audiences might go for war movies that presented soldiers as more heroic. From a military family, Jacks knows many veterans. In Hollywood's Iraq films, he says, "either the soldiers are victims or criminals doing something terrible like 'Redacted' or victims like 'Home of the Brave' or 'Stop-Loss.' But for most soldiers, it's about making sure their teammates get out alive. The best movies are about a single unit on a single mission. Otherwise movies get too big, into sweeping issues of politics and morality."

The liberal British film award panel for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards decided to eliminate “Battle for Haditha” because of the inconvenient truth that it is a lie that the Haditha Marines were guilty of an atrocity. As reported by one of the judges in the Guardian:

But a judge enlightens us that charges against some of the soldiers have recently been dropped. With a QC [Queens Counsel: “Barristers of at least ten years standing may apply to become queens counsel. QCs undertake work of an important nature”) on the judging panel this became a vote-changing issue.

Another Varietyreview
comments: “Given their awareness of Broomfield's track record as a maker of lurid docus, some auds [that’s audiences, for us non-Hollywood types] might even momentarily confuse "Battle" with a docu, and the actors play a major role in creating this illusion.”

David Allender interviews the lead actor, chosen by Broomfield because he is a former Marine who fought in Iraq so as to lend credence to the film. The lead actor claims, “The film is definitely a fictional portrayal.” Allender follows up: “I can’t speak for the Wuterich family, obviously, but I think they’d probably appreciate it if you stressed to the media that this is not a true story.”

Variety reportsthat as of last Friday, “"Battle for Haditha," has bookings at New York's Film Forum but is still looking for a domestic distrib.” [that’s distributor, for us non-Hollywood types]

As my Southern friends would say, that America-bashing dog of a film won’t hunt.