Full Metal Postmodernism
With a heavy-handed screenplay, clichéd soldier acting that would be overly mannered for a Call of Duty cutscene and crude attempts to emulate an Arabic news network and various mid-2000s websites... it felt like something between sophomoric agitprop and an outdated 'multimedia' installation at an art gallery. I also have a big issue with the film's implication that the primary problem with the United States' wars in the post-9/11 era was the psychopathology and atrocities of individual soldiers, rather than the wars to begin with… but hey. Whilst I would like to make a joke about the fact that Jean Baudrillard died the same year this came out, I do think this film's political and parodic intentions were better than that, it just didn't come out quite right, despite some obvious fails (such as the heavy-handed symbolism of those ants overpowering a scorpion). Oh, one last thing: the look and feel of Marine Blix (yes, really) is surely a nod to Sergeant Joker in Kubrick's classic.
Synopsis: A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.