"Brothers at War" doesn’t fully succeed in giving us the finest documentary experience, but it succeeds in haunting us, making us laugh, making us cry and perhaps understand the plight of today's modern solider.

--R. L. Shaffer

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Brothers at War (2009)

Directors: Jake Rademacher

Producers: Gary Sinise

Writers: Jake Rademacher

Features: Rated R for language and a brief war image. Running Time: 110 Min. In U.S. theaters: March 13, 2009.

Characters:

Various

Genre: Documentary

Review:

It’s pretty easy to be "against the Iraq war" these days. With the Bush administration gone, no longer calling the shots, and an ambitious president hoping to end combat operations in Iraq by late next year, public opinion about the war has dropped to an all-time low. Thankfully, unlike Vietnam, this anti-war sentiment hasn’t translated much to our veterans. The soldiers today are not coming home only to be pelted by decaying vegetation and hailed as "baby killers." Such animosity and volatility is mostly a thing of the past ... mostly.

The men and women of our armed forces are in Iraq to do a job -- nothing more, nothing less. There’s no politics, just an enemy and an objective.

Even though most civilians like myself understand that a soldier’s life is like a job, we still often fail to understand the sacrifice -- mental, emotional and physical -- soldiers endure to complete their missions. This is where filmmaker Jake Rademacher’s "Brothers at War" comes into play.

The documentary follows Jake as he attempts to understand the mindset and experiences of the common solider, particularly after he’s challenged by his two brothers who don’t believe he can grasp the intense world they endure every day over in Iraq, from the good times to the bad times and the mentally scarring moments in between.

With a camera crew in tow, he heads to Iraq and finds himself seated among numerous platoons, occasionally tossed right in the middle of intense gunfire. The film brilliantly paints a world darkened by an unseen enemy. The insurgents always seem one or two steps ahead of the soldiers, never seen on screen for a single moment, yet their impact resonates throughout each of the platoons Jake visits.

This silent, volatile enemy becomes the source of much frustration and disillusionment among the troops, most of whom eventually come to question what their purpose is -- not because their job is pointless, but because they’re job is blindly terrifying with little satisfaction. This is not an enemy easily caught and killed.

Rademacher examines the soldiers with a keen, mostly unbiased eye, peering into their world as though he were a part of the infantry, occasionally dashing humor on the situation with "fish out of water" gags (like how to defecate in the middle of the Iraqi desert).

The documentary only muddies its message when Jake returns home after his first visit to Iraq. It’s here where the film truly engages Jake’s cocky, but shy younger brother, Joe, who clearly appears mentally scarred by his experiences in combat. With his head hung low, slipping his words out with much restraint and muddled silence, Joe sloughs off Jake’s efforts as "nothing like what he’s experienced." Even Joe’s teary-eyed girlfriend feels the disconnect -- fearing for her lover’s life.

Unfortunately, Jake seems a bit gun shy in suggesting his brother is already experiencing signs of mental depression, angst and anxiety, common among soldiers returning from Iraq. Instead, the film shifts focus on Jake’s other brother who passed away (seemingly from drug overdose, though it’s never mentioned). While the impact of his death does shape the Rademacher family, it bogs down the pace and ultimately feels redundant to the story and message at hand, particularly because it dominates a good 10 or 15 minutes of screentime.

Thankfully, the documentary pushes on toward the exciting finale as Jake returns to Iraq, poised to see real tension and gunplay -- like his brother. It’s here where he meets some of the film’s best "characters" and the true vision of a combat foot soldier is not only seen, but experienced first-hand with stunning, shocking moments of brutal fear and violent reality peppered with sharp emotional poignancy.

"Brothers at War" is not tightly focused or driven by one distinct narrative (several perspectives are seen throughout the film as we explore Jake and his two brothers). It’s a clunky documentary that occasionally feels manufactured and unfocused, unraveled by confusing pacing and wonky editing. But the heart and spirit of the solider seen on screen echoes long after the credits have rolled. These men and women give their life for a cause they hope is pure. They fight an enemy that’s more than willing to die to kill them. Their lives are riddled with danger and risk. And it’s not just their lives that are affected. It’s their parents, friends, their wives, husbands and children who feel the impact of their sacrifice. This is what Jake shows us.

Jake doesn’t fully succeed in giving us the finest documentary experience, but he succeeds in haunting us, making us laugh, making us cry and perhaps understand -- he infects our minds with the torture and success of war, if only for a short while.

As one solider says in the film, "If I figure out why I’m here and why I do this, I’ll let you know."

The fact that this soldier never returns a response to that thought resonates deeply. The film shows us that war is, indeed, hell. But it also succeeds in showing us that war is also a job -- perhaps the worst job ever because it comes with hefty sacrifice, profound risk and scars that will never go away.

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