In what must be one of the first documentaries to deal with the actual experience of American soldiers involved in the Iraqi war, Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's Gunner Palace is, in its way, a triumph of understatement. It is not a great film by any means, but it is intriguing, engaging, and more than a little troubling. Tucker lived with the soldiers, bunking with them in the bombed-out Azimiya Palace last occupied by Uday Hussein and built by Saddam Hussein. It was in many ways the perfect venue, in the heart of Baghdad, Adhamiya.

Following the conventional wisdom that "less is more," Tucker takes an almost parenthetical approach to the lives of the soldiers of 2/3 Field Artillery, showing us what happens before and after raids and skirmishes that get really violent and disturbing, and the downtimes when the soldiers are relaxing, reflecting and taking time out for some rest and recreation. We see them swimming, golfing, partying, playing the guitar, fixing a Humvee, breaking down doors, and trying to kill a rat. Several of the soldiers use rapping to sort out their feelings and blow off steam. Their off-the-cuff candor is strangely moving, and I think, at the heart of Gunner Palace's strategy.

It's not unusual, I suppose, for a documentary (or many theatrical films, for that matter) to find a dry, matter-of-fact tone, but Gunner Palace is something else again. From the outset a soldier makes an analogy between the current craze for reality shows and the truth of their perilous, day-to-day existence, and it's as if Tucker were trying to mock the dull, trance-inducing technique of television broadcasting. Needless to say, this sort of wry, imitative spin is not without its hazards. The responsibility pretty much falls on the audience to figure out the significance behind this kind of studied artlessness.

I'm not saying it's bad, but sometimes Gunner Palace can be fairly listless. I'm not sure if the folks who need to will grasp the irony of Americans who judge the world primarily through a television camera and subsequently, the entertainment value of The Iraq War or its lack thereof. More than one soldier comments on the ongoing debate over the U.S. war in Iraq by folks who have no genuine investment in the outcome or casualties, only the need to advance personal ideologies. Gunner Palace's greatest strength is its documentation of the thoughts and attitudes of the soldiers themselves.