For a documentary that opens with American troops, on patrol in Baghdad, coming across a corpse killed execution style — with eyes, ears and nose cut off — it’s striking that the most dismaying scene in “Gangs of Iraq” doesn’t come till some 45 minutes later.
It occurs after American and Iraqi troops on a joint operation find and harmlessly detonate a car bomb. As the Americans, pleased at their success, walk away, the camera mike overhears some of the Iraqi soldiers speaking quietly among themselves as they smoke.
“I am telling you there’s nothing here — this is just kid stuff,” one says in Arabic. “The big stuff is not here,” he says. “It’s with my mullah.” The conversation ends when the men notice that the video camera trained on them has a microphone.
NYT Review on Gangs of Iraq
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