February 09, 2005
Movie review | Gunner Palace (R)***
Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
"I noticed that my face is aging so quickly," raps one of the American soldiers in Gunner Palace, "'cause I've seen more than your average man in his 50s." His name is Sgt. Nick Moncrief; he's 24 years old, married with two kids, and, like the rest of the men and women we meet in the film, he's stationed in Iraq and living in a perpetual state of tension.
Directed by the husband and wife team of Michael Tucker and Petra Eppertein, who spent two month-long periods in 2003 filming and bunking with the members of the 2/3 Field Artillery unit, Gunner Palace provides a glimpse into the daily routines of soldiers housed in a sprawling Baghdad palace where Saddam Hussein's son Uday once lived.
With Hussein dethroned and the intense heat of the Iraqi invasion four months in the past, the soldiers spend their days patrolling the city, serving as everything from cops to truant officers, mediating neighborhood disputes, conducting raids on homes of suspected insurgents and, occasionally and unexpectedly, being wounded or killed by sniper fire, bombs and other surprise attacks.
In their off-hours, the soldiers party at the mansion, frolicking at the pool in tropical shirts and teeing off on putting greens, in scenes that are reminiscent of Robert Altman's M*A*S*H. If you're lucky enough not to have a relative or friend serving in Iraq, it has become all too easy to allow the ongoing conflict there to seep into the background, becoming white noise on the nightly news we take notice of only when a major story breaks. In a simple, direct manner, Gunner Palace reminds you that the thousands of faceless, nameless troops in Iraq are still there after you switch off CNN. Like another soldier states into the camera, ''For y'all this is just a show, but we live in this movie.'' -- RR
Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
