Review: Restrepo (15)****

It sounds like the kind of blurb that appears in the previews pages of the Radio Times. Yet Restrepo is no low-budget B movie. Instead, it's a truthful, emotionally charged and frequently devil-may-care excursion into a modern war in which the characters are sincere and unfeigned.

Filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington spent months documenting the day-to-day activities of a platoon of US troops in eastern Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, accurately described by the brass as "one of the most dangerous postings in the US military".

What they catch on camera is the fragmented nature of war at the sharp end: extended periods of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by fleeting moments of action in which fear, courage and exhilaration jockey for position in the soldiers' psyche.

What comes through is the timeless soldier's desire: to do the job, survive and return home in one piece. In that respect this perceptive portrait of 21st century warfare is as relevant as any other group biography of fighting men in any conflict in any age.

The film focuses on the creation of Outpost Restrepo, a heavily fortified observation bunker high above the main camp with panoramic views across enemy territory. Its isolation tells the soldiers manning it that they have zero chance of survival if Taliban guerrillas choose to attack.

Restrepo chronicles the daily exchanges of gunfire with a casualness that mirrors the soldiers' increasing insouciance. Yet beneath the nervy camaraderie, macho bonhomie and doomed attempts to interact with the locals, is a creeping realisation that this particular war has no real purpose.

Officers, NCOs and private soldiers all share one harsh epiphany: that in witnessing the deaths of scores of their comrades, they are still no nearer understanding what they were doing in Afghanistan or what their mission ultimately was.

Young soldiers with dead eyes return from all wars. The tragedy of films like Restrepo is that no-one is any closer to being able to explain to them why they have to do what they do.

On staggered release