The War Tapes
SenArt Films | Release Date: June 2, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
There's a lot to process when watching The War Tapes, and that's probably why the documentary gets even better a few days later. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Gripping documentary. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The best documentary to date about the military occupation of Iraq. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
It's an experience that blows your mind, clears it and educates it. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The War Tapes captures how the war in Iraq, for all its terrible carnage and death, is in a way too random in its destruction to even be called ''combat.'' Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleToddy Burton
A powerfully unique film. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
We get to know three of these courageous, funny, smart and perhaps permanently damaged men in a film that largely avoids telling us what to think and makes an effort to get near the truth of the soldiers' experience. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Really the film is a deft first-person character study with a war zone for a background. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Must-see stuff. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
This film is apolitical in the best sense - it bears witness to a time and a place. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
The War Tapes falls just short of greatness, because its scope is too limited. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
The edited footage has an intensity and immediacy you won't find on cable news networks. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
The film acutely captures the topsy-turvy uncertainty of life during wartime, where there's Burger King and land mines and Pizza Hut and snipers. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The documentary camera has made repeated trips to occupied Iraq, but never to such raw and honest effect as in The War Tapes. The reason is surprisingly simple: This time, the lens is being pointed not by embedded journalists, but by the American soldiers themselves. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
In the latest of what is getting to be a booming genre of Iraq war documentaries, director Deborah Scranton gives digital video cameras to five members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard so they can intimately record their year of service in the Middle East. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
The latest in a series of big-screen documentaries dealing with the conflict, and it does so in a particularly involving, fly-on-the-wall manner. Read full review
70
VarietyRonnie Scheib
The picture's deepest fascination lies in the soldiers' complicated reactions to the war, perceived simultaneously as funny, horrific, stirring and traumatic. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
See The War Tapes. Maybe this picture can be worth a thousand lives. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Whatever your opinion of the war - and however it has changed over the years - this movie is sure to challenge your thinking and disturb your composure. It provides no reassurance, no euphemism, no closure. Given the subject and the circumstances, how could it? Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyTim Grierson
With its weary disillusionment, The War Tapes shouldn't be criticized for its seeming lack of outrage. Indeed, from the overwhelming grief and anger it uncovers, the film feels appropriately, uncomfortably numb. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
While we at home can't come close to experiencing the war in any real sense, we do come away from Scranton's film with a greater sense of the soldiers' everyday fear, helplessness and horror. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A gripping, sometimes dramatic, sometimes annoying collection of jerky images and subjective impressions. Read full review
60
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Make no mistake: The War Tapes is not an overtly political film. It appears to grind no partisan ax nor score either red or blue points. Whether viewers support the war or not -- or find themselves somewhere in the mushy middle -- this documentary won't fit comfortably into the pigeonholes of their preconceptions. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
On a strictly experiential level, Deborah Scranton's The War Tapes is remarkable, tactile, and affecting; as a piece of sociopolitical culture with context and ramifications of its own, it's a worthless ration of war propaganda--ethnocentric, redneck, and enabling. Read full review
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