When I say that Gunner Palace should have been more, I don't mean that it should have been a better or more in-depth look at the lives of the troops in Iraq. Indeed, it is one of the closest looks at the daily lives of the soldiers over there that we have been able to see since the war started, but Director Michael Tucker has no idea how to get good interviews from the soldiers, and he messes it up even worse when he decides to talk.
It's really sad that so many of the soldiers were handed this incredible opportunity to give a first account depiction of what their experience is like in Iraq and they use it to just screw around and act like idiots. Granted, a lot of these kids are barely out of high school, but I wish Tucker would have concentrated on the ones that had something important to say. I have all the respect in the world for these guys, but when it comes to getting an idea of what it's like to live in Iraq in a time of war, I'd be happy to stick to the guys that want to really talk about what's important, I could do without the interviews of the guys that just want to be funny.
The guys that just want to be funny, of course, do not include the musicians featured in this documentary. Most of them are not making the kind of music that I am interested in but it is good to see that so many of them take their difficult experiences and channel it into something productive.
The biggest problem that I had with this movie, however, is the goofy, melodramatic voice-over that Tucker put in every once in a while. Yes, it is some pretty dramatic subject matter, but the way that Tucker narrates this documentary reminds me at times of the way John Bunnell hosts World's Wildest Police Videos. He over-dramatizes everything in a way that just makes it sound goofy (I once saw an episode where a car running from the police went briefly onto the shoulder on a country road and knocked down a couple of pieces of rotted wood that were sticking up through the dry grass, and Bunnell chimes in, "the fleeing madman SMASHES through a wooden barricade!!!").
Tucker doesn't fill his documentary with unnecessary hyperbole like Bunnell does, but rather with a misplaced theatrical performance as the narrator. Where simple descriptions would have been sufficient, Tucker opts for an added performance that just makes him hard to listen to. When it comes to a direct look at the lives of the troops in Iraq, I just don't think anything extra is necessary, but it seems that he concentrates more on this than on the really relevant things that are going on. There are some soldiers who do give important insight, but so much time is wasted and so much extra fluff is put in that it makes a lot of the documentary look like farce.
It's really sad that so many of the soldiers were handed this incredible opportunity to give a first account depiction of what their experience is like in Iraq and they use it to just screw around and act like idiots. Granted, a lot of these kids are barely out of high school, but I wish Tucker would have concentrated on the ones that had something important to say. I have all the respect in the world for these guys, but when it comes to getting an idea of what it's like to live in Iraq in a time of war, I'd be happy to stick to the guys that want to really talk about what's important, I could do without the interviews of the guys that just want to be funny.
The guys that just want to be funny, of course, do not include the musicians featured in this documentary. Most of them are not making the kind of music that I am interested in but it is good to see that so many of them take their difficult experiences and channel it into something productive.
The biggest problem that I had with this movie, however, is the goofy, melodramatic voice-over that Tucker put in every once in a while. Yes, it is some pretty dramatic subject matter, but the way that Tucker narrates this documentary reminds me at times of the way John Bunnell hosts World's Wildest Police Videos. He over-dramatizes everything in a way that just makes it sound goofy (I once saw an episode where a car running from the police went briefly onto the shoulder on a country road and knocked down a couple of pieces of rotted wood that were sticking up through the dry grass, and Bunnell chimes in, "the fleeing madman SMASHES through a wooden barricade!!!").
Tucker doesn't fill his documentary with unnecessary hyperbole like Bunnell does, but rather with a misplaced theatrical performance as the narrator. Where simple descriptions would have been sufficient, Tucker opts for an added performance that just makes him hard to listen to. When it comes to a direct look at the lives of the troops in Iraq, I just don't think anything extra is necessary, but it seems that he concentrates more on this than on the really relevant things that are going on. There are some soldiers who do give important insight, but so much time is wasted and so much extra fluff is put in that it makes a lot of the documentary look like farce.