Disc Reviews

Prisoner Of War Review

• 30th Aug 2014

It always takes a few years before big news stories, events and even wars hit the big screen as subject matter. The Vietnam War took several years to became a subject Americans can deal with in popular culture, the modern troubles in Northern Ireland took many more years whereas cinema in many countries found the propaganda value of World War II. Over the past few years there has been a steady rise and stream of films centering on the Iraq War and the War on Terror. There have of course been some outstanding films, among them Kathryn Bigelow’s two superb Oscar winning films of the past four years as well as a handful of returning home films such as In the Valley of Elah (2006). After all it was these kind of films, such as Coming Home and The Deer Hunter (both made in 1978) which sparked a whole series of films dealing with the Vietnam War (there were others before, but these were the few which were critically recognized), made some 3-4 years after the war had ended. Prisoner of War was not a critically recognized film and did not even gain a UK cinema release. It does, however, cover a significant event in the Iraq War, albeit using fictitious characters. Needless to say a story about the Abu Ghraib tortures and humiliation by US Forces in an already notorious prison under Saddam Hussein is a controversial subject especially for Americans to deal with and face up to.

The story opens with Jack Farmer, a Midwestern 22-year-old on the eve of his departure for a tour of duty in Iraq, spending his last night before leaving with his loving family and girlfriend whom he is very much in love with and hopes to marry. On arriving in Iraq he finds war not as he expected. The desert of course is hot, the ‘base’ at Abu Ghraib boring and there is nothing to do to but kill time. Only the occasional mortar attack by insurgents which from time to time kills comrades breaks the monotony. The film counts down Jack’s time here in days (some 200 initially). To kill the boredom he volunteers to do MP duty (for which he admits to being totally inexperienced), guarding some apparent insurgents. When he arrives at the prison for his first day’s work he is instructed that his work involves slopping out prisoners and has complete authority over the prisoners to treat as he sees fit. The line is drawn that he is not to talk to the prisoners other than to bark orders and mete out punishment and most definitely not to show weakness. Jack struggles with this and soon finds himself the victim of having faeces thrown at him. However, fate deals a bitter blow to Jack and his tour is extended a further 200 days with no leave and still no method of writing letters home to loved ones or access to phones or the internet being totally cut off from the outside world. By this time Jack has broken the cardinal rule of talking to one of the prisoners, Ghazi, a family man who has been tortured by the US for alleged laying IEDs. Jack doesn’t believe this but a series of events lead to his turn and becoming a perpetrator himself.

There is a wonderful twist ending to the film (no spoiler alert here) that gives some satisfaction just before the viewer is left feeling that the whole film is a damp squib. Prisoner of War is short on action and there are no real graphic scenes of torture while at times the drama is a bit wanting. Jarhead (2005) dealt with boredom and the anticipation of going into the war during the 1990 Gulf War but the anticipated action does not arrive, yet the film remains riveting. In many ways though the ending is worth waiting for. Directed, produced and written by Luke Moran, this is a small scale film that does give a side to the events but one is left feeling that this is an apologia for American atrocities committed by American soldiers, that all sense of law and order has broken down in this particular environment and blames the actions on what took place squarely on the soldiers of the US military authorities without any recourse to the individuals themselves. Of course in this case, it is the environment that created the situation and the film is nowhere near as powerful or shocking as the images themselves with Private Lynndie England coming under particular media focus as a woman.

The title in the UK is more fitting than the misnomer American title, Boys of Abu Ghraib, with the prisoner of war not just being those behind bars being tortured but also those serving in this film, while not great deserves to be more broadly seen and studied.

Chris Hick