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Rating:  -
This film really shows the average experiences of the infantry in Iraq. I am a Soldier with 2 tours in Iraq and there is no other documentary that covers the war that I can relate to like this. It follows a squad from the 82nd Airborne on their day to day lives pulling missions in Fallujah. It really gives you a feel what it is like to deal with the Iraqis and the soldier's feelings on it. From combat missions to reenlistment briefings this film puts you in the lower enlisted and junior NCO's shoes.
A lot of the other reviews were saying things about it being anti-war and I completely disagree. You get a lot of honest comments from the Soldier's and Iraqi civilians, it's honesty, not anti-war. It's funny how combat troops on the ground have more empathy for people that are potentially trying to kill them than Americans 10,000 miles away.
A few other films that cover this war that are worth watching;
Combat Diary The Marines of Lima CO, this is an unfortunate story and every American should hear it. These Marines dealt with the worst case scenerio and somehow drove on.
Gunner Palace, this film shows how support troops live in Iraq. These guys are an embarrassment to the US Army, however it is still acurate on how a lot of troops live in Iraq
Rating: -
I felt like I was in Iraq after watching this. It is the most realistic I have seen on being there. I highly recommend it. It really puts you on the ground over there, and gives you an idea of what it is like for our troops. I wish every American could see it.
Rating:  -
Hollywood just isn't making movies right now. In a pile of DVD "screeners", I stumbled upon a plain white DVD entitled "Occupation: Dreamland". I had no idea it was about Iraq or Fallujah or anything like that. It sounded like a Discovery Channel Special on Nellis Air Force base (Area 51 a.k.a. "Dreamland").
Make no mistake, Occupation: Dreamland turns out to be an anti-war film, but largely by accident, since at the time the filmmakers couldn't possibly have predicted the confluence of events that spawned all of the chaos in Fallujah, Iraq culminating with the Marines basically leveling the whole town.
Two events happen off-screen in Dreamland that set the tone of the whole film. An Iraqi woman is arrested and taken into custody by the 82nd Airborne (Army) and a U.S. solider is killed on patrol by an improvised explosive device. These events cause so much distrust between the locals and the Americans patrolling the streets that the two jobs of finding insurgents while making friends of the locals become near impossible.
What is strange is that the mission of finding and detaining insurgents pretty much entails breaking into people's homes in the middle of the night and scaring the crap out of all of the wives and kids who are sound asleep. What better way to ingratiate yourself with the community? An improvised die grinder and a little iron battering ram are the weapons of choice. Funnier still is that they appear to catch (or at least detain) the same middle-aged Saddam-Hussein-looking guy multiple times. Dude--how many houses is this guy staying in? He gets around. One wonders if these guys are all grooming themselves to look exactly like Saddam as some sort of twisted practical joke on the hapless American foot soldier?
Can our eight heroes bring order to the chaos that is the "truck stop" Al Fallujah? Nope--Not a chance. By logical extension can 100,000 of us do the same for the 22 million other Iraqis. Again...that's a big negative.
It looks like a bad episode of cops, except we really get to meet, understand and care about each one of the soldiers in the film. They are all very human, very real, and honest to a fault .
By law (apparently), all Iraqi males get to keep guns in the house (one gun per guy)--so many of these nocturnal home invasions are followed by a spirited game of "match the rifle to the Saddam look-alike". One can almost sense the tension building each day in the streets of Fallujah, culminating in the filmmakers catching an actual IED attack and explosion on film. No one gets killed, but the driver of the lead Humvee sustains a pretty good concussion from the blast.
It would be oversimplifying to write off Dreamland as anti-war propaganda--our guys are clearly the good guys--they just don't want to get blown up. And they're stuck doing a job (policeman) that they clearly didn't think they were signing up for.
If you had in your head the notion that we can ever "win" the war in Iraq--this film should pretty much help put those ideas out to pasture--for good.
Rating: -
I really found this film affecting. It is not partisan or simplistic. It respects our troops by listening and being there. The military team the audience gets to hang with is strikingly diverse on every level. I walked out of the theater thinking that insight is more interesting than "answers". Every American should see this film.
Rating:  -
OPERATION DREAMLAND is interesting only for its inside look at a squad of the 82nd Airborn on active duty in Falluja (City of Mosques). Other than that, it has no plot or serious action and is basically an anti-war propaganda piece. Filmed in 2004 before the fierce battles for Falluja took place between American forces and terrorists and jihadists (in which they lost 900 and we lost 40), it is a rather boring and pedestrian look at a bunch of basically good young men trying to do a tough job. The filmmakers have chosen to emphasize the negative comments of two or three individuals in the squad and de-emphasize positive comments by others, giving it a definite anti-Irag War feel. Scenes were filmed of Iraqis complaining to the troops but no scenes of Iraqis thanking our troops for their help. In one major scene and a couple smaller viginettes, OCCUPATION DREAMLAND implies that 82nd Airborne troops did not have economic choices other than to serve in the army and as not wanting to re-up. Yet I hear about young men all the time who eagerly sign up to serve our country and who re-enlist. It is easy to take a thousand hours of film and leave what you don't want to show on the cutting room floor or just avoid filming certain things in the first place. The filmmakers may even have sought out a squad with some disaffected members to be the subjects of the movie. What irks me is that OCCUPATION DREAMLAND does not present itself as anti-war. Instead, it lures the viewer in as a documentary of grunts in Falluja. Why not just be honest about the film's political slant in the film's advertising and promotion? It's okay to be against the war but be honest about it. This, to me, this is the basest kind of deceit and is about as cowardly in its own way as the behavior of terrorists who conduct IED ambushes on our brave men in Irag. OCCUPATION DREAMLAND is a cowardly political ambush against our efforts in Irag.
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