Ignoring the inane “criticisms” of Medved and O’Reilly, I do have a few criticisms of my own – many echoed by other critics. For a film that is supposedly constructed out of scraps of this and that found here and there, Redacted seems too elegantly composed, the shots just a bit too perfect in their framing. After some thought though, I no longer find this to be a valid criticism. The most obvious offenders are the scenes taking place within the French-made documentary and the home-movie footage of one of the soldiers (Angel Salazar). But, the French documentary is clearly intended as a very elegantly and professionally made piece, more Pare Lorentz than Maysles Brothers, complete with a musical score right out of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. It’s a spoof of documentaries at their most manipulative and pretentious. It should be well-composed. Salazar intends to use his footage as an audition film for USC Film School. He should be wielding the camera with care.
Many have knocked the film for having “terrible” acting and I suppose they are correct, at least to a point. De Palma is taking aim at character types with Redacted and, much like his radical counterpart George Romero did in Day of the Dead, he resorts to grotesque stereotypes to make his points. No beating around the bush with the bad guys in either film. They are simply bad. I do think Redacted’s performances within this context are quite effective though. The evil seems to find surprising new twists of expression from each moment to the next. De Palma is also back to games again with the acting. One of my favorite aspects of documentary film is how people have a natural way of turning into actors – and often very bad ones – when a camera is pointed at them. Redacted makes conscious commentary on this by breaking a pivotal scene in half, first with the characters aware of their being filmed, second with their being tricked into thinking the camera has been turned off. The subtle changes in behavior are fascinating. At another point, Salazar dons a hidden camera on his helmet saying, “I don’t want the guys getting camera-shy.”
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