Fascinating and revolting but suffers a little from the same divided loyalties as its subjects.

supposedly funny but i didn't laugh

I had no idea such a thing existed so this... documentary? was pretty interesting.

A rather wild look at the training camp set up in the Mojave desert to mimic the conditions of Iraq for the purposes of training soldiers for deployment. The film follows both the military men as well as the character actors within the 'village' who are given scripted prompts and elaborate back stories to work with to develop their characters and how they feel about the occupying U.S. forces. At turns disturbing, funny and downright depressing, this film is well worth a look. Recommended.

An interesting look at the thought processes of both sides of the equation.

An extremely engaging documentary.

"The more your sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle." As a vet myself, I found this documentary completely engrossing. Right down to the finest detail, the documentary realistically captures an important part of our lives in the military. It's boring, stressful, exciting, depressing, and ironic. It ultimately prepares us for something bigger, but usually its not enough. I seriously wish that it went into a little more detail, but only for the benefit for the non-vets who don't understand certain aspects of military life (like the quick scene with the board games in the truck). "Training," is the theme here (before a deployment) and that's about it. If you're looking for meaningful insight into the Iraq war or another anti-soldier/anti-war movie, look elsewhere. You won't be getting into the soldiers heads either, since most soldiers would rather you not ask about their sob stories and PTSD. Anyways, if you consider yourself a troop-supporter and want to see soldiers in a realistic light that you haven't seen them before, I recommend to you this movie. Especially vets who've been through the old training sims. PS - I wonder if anyone's considered making a documentary of our demob training.

Not nearly as funny as advertised, but definitely every bit as interesting.

if you go down to the desert today...

I thought this film was perfectly constructed. There was enough humour through the movie to keep it from feeling awkward and depressing, but didn't do so at the sake of content. There was plenty there to provide for the "lively discussion" someone else mentioned. They were also masterfully good at injecting increasing increments of reality into the whole simulation, slowly getting rid of the idea that this might be a mockumentary(which is what I'd thought going into the movie), or at least to make you do your own research, which the same someone also mentioned previously. Just absolutely wonderfully constructed.

Very compelling and fascinating take on the Iraq war, film is not just war-oriented and manages to cross social and political themes as well, a unique film experience.

Informative. Even handed. Cinematic. Entertaining. Bound to cause lively discussion with whomever you see it with and will send you to the internet to do research on your own. In short, everything you could want from a documentary.

An interesting documentary that gives some insight into the micro level politics and lives of Iraqi people as well US military training. Also has some funny moments but I was a bit dissapointed as it was no where near as funny as the adverts for it suggested.

Incredible! You almost can't believe this is a documentary. You can only gape or laugh or cry.

fascinating. imo, genuine compassion for the players and a (relatively) balanced pov make this documentary worth seeing. like i read before seeing it: it would be funny if it weren't true.