Touches You

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An interesting documentary about one of the few mainstream reporters to live in Iraq near-continuously since before the American invasion and gained early acclaim due to his willingness to establish contacts with the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi insurgency and early days of the Islamic State. Frankly, many scenes are obscene, and I do not recommend anyone of a nervous disposition to watch this film. It is, however, an insight into the brutality of warfare up close which I don't recall seeing in any mainstream film release. What it doesn't do is give much insight on 'Al-Zarqawi'. It is more of a personal account of his difficult time. A visceral, harrowing distillation of the reporter's seven years on the front line.

Filled with footage that can only be described as incredible, as a viewer I found myself absolutely glued to the screen from start to finish.This documentary shows a very raw viewpoint of the Iraq War and gives an insight into the filmaker and his motivations who put himself in such grave danger to acquire footage that is nothing short of remarkable.One of the more interesting shots near the start of the documentary is narrated by the filmaker who explains this is the first time he captured anything on video, and that over the course of the next few years he would capture hundreds of hours of footage on what he describes as a beat up handycam.Another notable points is the filmakers decision to show his team on the documentary, crediting the team (most of whom are local people) for their efforts shows that not every citizen of the country is an enemy of the west, something I wish other media covering the war would stress.There are scenes that are difficult to watch but I am glad they are included, I would say that is one of the strong points of this documentary, as this gives a very authentic feel to the footage.

I saw Michael Ware on Real Time before this film came out, and his state made me interested to see this film – since essentially it is a document of his time in Iraq from the start of the GW Bush war, through the rise of the insurgency. The footage that this gives us is not only impacting in terms of what he shot, but also the access he got to footage filmed by the jihadists themselves. It perhaps goes without saying that this film is a brutally hard watch, with a lot of footage which is violent and upsetting in nature.In this way it is an engaging watch though, because it very much feels like we are in the center of this terrible darkness, and to see the roots of it is to understand the endless cycle with no easy way to break it. Again, it is not pleasant to watch this, but it is engaging in that bleakness. Unfortunately, the film itself is not particularly good. As a documentary it is too focused on Ware, while at the same time not really being focused on him. The narration is heavily used to keep all this footage together, which in and of itself is a problem. This weakness is more noticeable because the narration is not great in its dialogue – it feels forced and overwrought at times; with Ware many steps ahead of the viewer. Unfortunately this weakness in form and delivery does stay with the film and the viewer, and it prevents it being a good documentary, even if the footage is shocking and engages on that level.

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.