Nick Broomfield Battle for Haditha

Yes, we all know what happens to Iraq-war movies in the marketplace of ideas. But forget about that for the moment, because Nick Broomfield's "Battle for Haditha" -- a largely improvised fictional docudrama whose cast includes ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees -- is the closest thing this conflict has produced to a "Paths of Glory" or an "All Quiet on the Western Front." It's a full-tilt, pulse-pounding war movie that resists moralism or easy stereotypes, and depicts the November 2005 "Haditha massacre," in which a group of enraged Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, as a prodigiously tragic example of war's universal tendency to dehumanize everyone it touches. (The movie opens this Friday at Film Forum in New York, with other engagements to follow.) -- Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com