One wonders what attracted the filmmakers to a subject about which they have so little to say.

| Mar 9, 2018

Like any documentary about putting on a show, Full Battle Rattle abounds with mirth-provoking incongruities between the effect aimed for and the means used to achieve it.

| Nov 4, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 16, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 16, 2011

Somewhere in the Mohave Desert, the U.S. military maintains a large rural compound that contains several fake Iraqi towns. It's Disneyland for war games

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 27, 2009

A so-so pic on an incendiary subject.

| Oct 18, 2008

A docu about modern war games in the California desert contains little insight into the Iraq War.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

An entertaining, often very funny, but ultimately revealing and unsettling film about a US Army camp in the Mojave Desert where Iraq War conditions are simulated for training purposes.

| Oct 18, 2008

Keeping the style objective and routine, [co-directors Tony] Gerber and [Jesse] Moss remain non-judgmental of the bizarre carnival they have uncovered.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 14, 2008

It is an enlightening lesson in modern warfare.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 8, 2008

A keenly insightful film concerning an unusual training program for war-bound U.S. soldiers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 8, 2008

this is such small stakes compared to the real war that the film can't help but feel equally unimportant.

| Jul 30, 2008

If you thought Disneyland was fun, take a trip to this complete simulated Iraqi village in California, and learn how the other half live. And die.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jul 27, 2008

Educational and enlightening.

| Jul 14, 2008

This increasingly complicated scenario isn't scripted, peace is far from guaranteed and the line between reality and its incredible simulation has a funny way of getting blurry.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 11, 2008

On one level, Full Battle Rattle is enjoyable for the theatrics ... On a second level ... is appreciable for what it says about the U.S. military's involvement in Iraq.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 11, 2008

In Full Battle Rattle, the Iraq Simulation and the war are both real and not real, confusing, painful, and horrific, for the refugees working as role players.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 11, 2008

Full Battle Rattle works just fine as a two-fisted combat story, with unexpected bursts of violence peppering that old universal message that war is hell. But the added layer of pretense pushes the movie to another level.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 10, 2008

One of the many surreal aspects of this fabulously disorienting movie: its representation of an Iraqi heaven that's an American hell.

| Jul 10, 2008

Just when I thought I had heard everything about the war in Iraq, along comes Full Battle Rattle.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2008