Iraq War Comes to the Silver Screen

Sept. 5, 2007 — -- The war in Iraq is coming to a theater near you.

In the next few months, as many as eight movies about the Iraq War will be released in theaters, including two that are rumored to be favorites at this week's Venice Film Festival.

Unlike past war films, the majority of which were not released until years after the conflicts had ended, Hollywood is anticipating the fall release of films inspired by the current war in Iraq.

Notable releases include director Brian De Palma's "Redacted," a fictional film based on the true story of the alleged rape and murder of a 15-year-old Iraqi girl. New film "In the Valley of Elah," starring Tommy Lee Jones, exposes the hardships faced by Iraq veterans returning home. The Hollywood Reporter pegged "Elah" as a "damning indictment of the Iraq War."

"As opposed to Vietnam where the Hollywood machine pretty much waited for two or three years [to release movies], now we're looking at two or three years after the invasion," said Jeffrey Wells, a columnist for Hollywood-Elsewhere.com.

The 1979 Academy and Golden Globe award winner "Apocalypse Now," from director Francis Ford Coppola, chronicled an army captain's journey through the jungles of Southeast Asia to find and kill a wayward U.S. Army Special Forces colonel. It arrived on the silver screen four years after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Similarly, "Full Metal Jacket" was released in 1987 and depicted the Vietnam War from the perspective of new U.S. Marines preparing to serve. Oliver Stone's film "Platoon" won an Academy Award in 1986, 11 years after the last American troops had left Vietnam.

"The Green Berets," one of the few films released during the Vietnam War, was panned by critics. In his 1968 review of the film, critic Robert Ebert wrote that he thought the movie was "propaganda" and "cliche."

A majority of the best-known World War II films were also released long after the war ended, such as "Saving Private Ryan" and the "Sands of Iwo Jima."