This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

One has to give props to Ware for bringing us such gripping images, and for partially sacrificing his own mental health in that pursuit. And also for venturing out a few times to be embedded with Iraqi militant groups. However, he is mostly embedded with US troops and it shows - and the film has problems due to the ideology that is expected from anyone hired at media like CNN & Time. Let's start at the very end, with the image of a man who dies in the hands of US troops and who could have been saved by Ware saying something. He has explained this by saying that 1) he had lost his humanity due to the war 2) He had gotten too immersed in his role as a journalist who simply observes but doesn't get involved in things. While these 2 are to some extent true, there is a third, far more powerful explanation: Ware was simply siding with the US military, not with "the enemy", who was represented by the man dying on the ground. Had the situation been reversed, and some Iraqi fighters with access to medical care had a US soldier in such conditions while Ware was filming, he would have been much more likely to ask for help. Certainly Ware acts very worried about a sergeant gone quiet in Fallujah, pro-actively trying to save him. The more personal and extensive interactions with the US soldiers lead the viewer to identify with the US side. Similarly, we hear that anti-US forces are "barbaric" "slaughterers"; with references to times "they had the advantage" in the battle of Fallujah, while US troops are simply "good men losing their grip" "young kids on an impossible mission", with reference to times when they only had "a third of the troops they needed" . Of course, in reality, it was Iraqi fighters that were in general vastly out-gunned by the US, while the amount of slaughter was mostly perpetrated by the US. During the 1st battle of Fallujah shown in the film (2004) only 27 U.S. troops were killed, while a total of 800 Iraqis died of which 572–616 were civilians and 184–228 were fighters. The Lancet report, which covers roughly the same range of years featured in this movie (2003-2006) estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, through the end of June 2006. 601,027 deaths were due to violence. 31% (186,318) of those were attributed to the US-led Coalition, 24% (144,246) to others, and 46% (276,472) were unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56% or 336,575), car bomb (13% or 78,133), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13% or 78,133), accident (2% or 12,020), and unknown (2%). So the data simply doesn't support Ware's ideological, one-sided use of words like "barbaric" "slaughterers" "terror" etc. And this is even ignoring the context of the US invasion being illegal and unjustified. One wonders how we would have felt about a journalist presenting a similar picture, but embedded with the Soviet troops in the 80s in Afghanistan. Also, the film conveniently oversimplifies the fighters in Fallujah by calling them "Zarqawi's men", when they actually came from several different groups, not just the one led by Zarqawi. A sign outside Fallujah's "Martyr's cemetery" reads: "This cemetery is given by the people of Fallujah to the heroic martyrs of the battle against the Americans, and to the martyrs of the Jihadi operations against the Americans, assigned and approved by the Mujahideen Shura council in Fallujah." The Mujahideen Shura Council featured at least 6 different insurgent groups.

It's a little disingenuous to claim that 'Al-Zarqawi' is a star in this documentary as if the creator was his 'go to guy'. I got no particular feeling of this at all, despite claims made during the documentary. I won't go into why, it would ruin the story. Despite these claims, it is a pretty good documentary and worth a watch for the sheer nakedness of the war displayed in all it's horror. Why we have censorship in countries is beyond me. War is war and should never be taken lightly. The age of some of these soldiers is unbelievable and the things and decisions they are exposed to on a daily basis is horrendous that it's really no surprise when they come back and develop PTSD.

I Have just returned from seeing this little gem.This is the most confronting doco I have ever seen. However, every person in what we like to call 'The West' needs to see this film. Every politician who sends our youth to war, every person who denies entry to asylum seekers from war-torn Iraq (and its neighbours), and every person who has an opinion about our 'invasion' of Iraq.We all know Michael Ware, that crazy Australian CNN reporter who was in the thick of it. I think Michael will excuse my use of 'crazy' because without these men and women who act as correspondents in war, we would never have perspectives not filtered by our governments.Ware returned from 7 years in Iraq with over 300 hours of tapes from a handicam that he described tonight in person at the screening as his notebook for his writing. This is his 'accidental documentary'.In this doco we see the fresh-faced Ware in Iraq just before the 2003 invasion. We see him as he becomes the favoured news outlet for the emerging group that would become Islamic State. We see him question himself, how dark the human mind can become and how desensitisation goes hand-in-hand with warfare. We see the fresh- faced young Americans who have been thrust into this warzone as little more that teenagers (and some still are). We see the tragedy for the people of Iraq. Then we see the conclusion that tests our humanity and how we see others. It will shake you.Take a deep breath, buy a ticket and prepare to never be the same (but I think for the better).Thanks Michael :)

This is the most confronting and in your face film I have ever seen. Documenting 7 years living in Iraq as a war correspondent for TIME and CNN, Michael (an Aussie) tells an amazing personal story of how he was nearly beheaded, worked to tell both sides of the Iraq war and his personal struggles. I watched a screening where Michael did a Q&A afterward, his insightful, concise and articulate depiction of what he went through, the PTSD, the stories he told and his analysis of Middle East, make this one of the best films. He does the American soldiers justice in this film, it is not a Hollywoodised depiction of the glory of war! This is real war.