Why so much hype?

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The one thing that strikes you more than anything else about the war documentary is how quiet it is. You would expect bombs exploding and bullets whizzing and shouts and screams, but they are all missing from this work by Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker.What remains is a constant recognition of the tension under which these soldiers are operating. Every moment, 24 hours a day, they are under threat. Everey step they take, every road they travel is fraught with danger from IEDs or motors or rifle fire.They are America's young; people who, for the most part, had no other options back home, and are now joined in a brotherhood that plays together, prays together, and dies together.It is a beautiful story of what our soldiers are going through.

Just to see a documentary on the battle for Iraq is refreshing. The nightly news coverage, with that 30 second loop of whatever-happens-to-be-going-on while some anchorman or reporter drones on endlessly about what some talking heads in the Pentagon, state department, opposition group or the White House, are to this movie what MTV is to a serious news magazine. The drama is 1000 times more real than any reality TV and therefore it's entertaining. Soldiers being soldiers, without a script or other parameters are insightful, I suspect, for the average viewer, particularly the American viewer, who most likely doesn't have an inkling what the military, much less war, is like. The soldiers are candid, mostly young, intelligent, interesting and articulate, which should be no surprise as they are a cross section of America.The crew do a good job of bringing out the points of view as things happen, whether it be a raid, a public protest, or a casualty which gives us a solid look and feel to what these artillerymen experience.Still the documentary is rather flat. Although the crew counts down the days until the unit departs Iraq, there is no flow to the film. Things happen and soldiers and Iraqis provide commentary. There are no themes or dividers (which was probably intentional) so the film has no sense of time and is amorphous.The drama rarely builds and when something does happen the most dramatic aspect seems to be the narrators voice (I tend to think he doesn't talk like this normally). There's a solemn moment when one of the unit's officers dies. While the way and time the narrator finds out is itself sad, we can't really empathize because the individual is hardly mentioned prior to his death. Maybe it was out of consideration of his family and friends, but although we learn the narrator and he were close, this information only comes to us after the fact. The poetry and rapping provide the majority of the music and, regardless of the talent of the soldiers who do it, it becomes a little stale and somewhat out of place. Granted, we've become accustomed to associating 60's music with Vietnam, but there has to be something a little more representative of Iraq's "sound". If you are looking for more than what's offered on the news as to what occupation duty in Iraq is like, this will do the trick. If you are looking for a fascinating and well structured documentary, look elsewhere.

Gunner Palace, a documentary by Michael Tucker that follows the U.S. Army's 2/3 Field Artillery for two months while the cope with occupation duty in Iraq. The title is a conflation of the nickname of the unit, The Gunners, and the fact that they have set up shop in a bombed out palace of Uday Hussein.I can't find it on the web, but I read a bio that the filmmaker served in the mid to late 80s, roughly the same time I was in the Army. I've latched onto the fact (and I hope it is true) because it explains the tone of the film. When I walked out, I told Jim, who had seen it with me, that this guy wanted to make an anti-war movie, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it.What we see is as much cinema verities we are likely to get in this politically radioactive conflict. Tucker lets the young troops pretty much be young troops for the camera. They all to some extent (and one in particular a great deal) mug for the camera and utter their doubts, concerns and reveal their conflicts. There don't appear to be many people above the age of thirty, though I find it hard to believe that an entire battalion would be so comprised.We also see soldier show great restraint in difficult situations. In one scene, a drugged out, dirty and bedraggled street urchin is delivered to a place where he will hopefully find some sort of care. The GIs are careful, almost solicitous of the child, demonstrating a great deal of tenderness when considered in context of the fact that they are in a city where they are compelled to carry heavy weapons and wear body armor.There is a lot of very scraggly video of nighttime raids. Bear in mind that field artillerymen are trained to shoot high-explosives over the horizon and wreck stuff, not tool around a foreign capital like cops. Again, these young men show tremendous restraint as they round up people suspected of manufacturing roadside bombs and lobbing mortars at their temporary home.You feel a sense of futility at times as you watch, but a 60 day snapshot of a difficult mission is going to do that. Some of the soldiers make statements that could be found on you garden variety Bush = Hitler website, and it broke my heart. What they are doing is noble and necessary given the condition of the world, though a 20 year old would be hard pressed to put it into proper context. It is a shame for anyone over there doing their best to not feel their due honor.If you rabidly feel one should speak-no-evil of the war while we are at war, Gunner Palace will irk you or worse. I found it to be sufficiently truthful and sincere to be a must-see. Pro-war and anti-war folk will find inspiration, which may mean it was done just about right.

This movie through all its cursing, violence and drug references, this movie takes the "BS" out of the media's broadcasts and throws you straight into what little sense of "reality" one can get of war on the big screen. It leaves the politics behind and puts you straight in the middle of The Sandbox with the men and women who fight for this country. This movie will probably have you laughing your tail end off then in a somber silence in a matter of seconds. Political bias aside, Gunner Palace is something every citizen of the world needs to see, preferably before the next special report on what's "happening" in Iraq.All this said, I personally walked away with a greater sense of pride in my country's soldiers, in the eyes of everyone of the speakers in this movie I saw those of my friends who have been there or who are there. This movie has moved me in a way which I shall not soon forget. The look of sheer terror and hope all on the same face has a profound effect on one's soul.