In Our Name (Review)

Last night I watched the movie In Our Name, I have been looking forward to watching this film as its main theme is mental illness after returning from a theatre of War in this case Iraq and the development of PTSD of a young female soldier played by Joanne Froggatt of Dowton Abbey fame. Being an ex soldier myself I am always extra critical of mannerisms and how the actor are dressed. My pet hate is huge helicopter landing pads they wear on their heads pretending to be berets, `Suzy` didn’t let me down in that regard, but this didn’t really affect the storyline. All I would say to anyone thinking of making a military themed production is please shape the berets, hot water cold water, shape on head. A civilian would not even notice the beret thing, but believe me soldiers and ex soldiers do. While I’m on with props lets get the weapons sorted, `Suzy` is a private soldier, however she has no problems in getting her hands on a pistol, the usual British army pistol was the 9mm Browning L9A1 , the pistol used in the movie was a shiny sliver version as used by street gangsters , not the British army. Some units are lucky enough to get their hands on P226 SIG Pistols, but you get my drift. The producers would probably say I’m being pedantic but I would have happily given them free advice like this if they had asked. But lets get back to the main reason for this movie and that’s highlighting PTSD. I’m glad that they decided to use a female soldier and especially one with a small child, I thought the little girl was a brilliant actress and showed some of the adults how to do it with realism and a flair for acting that I’m sure will lead to a lot more work in the future. The viewers would have had more empathy and maybe a little more sympathy. This shows what I have been saying for a long while that PTSD is not just a `military thing` it affects us all, and could have (in the plot) led to the death of the little girl when she played with the pistol in the woods. To make a bad combination of having PTSD Suzy also had a husband who was also mentally affected and kept `trophies ` of his War in the shape of a blood soaked Shemagh or as he referred to it to another squaddy as he threatened to bite his face off a `scarf`, sorry just me nit picking again, he also had the obligatory photos of dead Iraqis, that he kept in his garage. I actually enjoyed the film more than I thought I would, probably do to the subject matter. It had an 18 rating due to the extreme violence and sex scenes. He husband `Mark constantly wanted to get his leg over and him and his mates kick a Pakistani taxi driver half to death, Suzy obviously was not  the mood as her head was still spinning with images of dead children in Iraq. It obviously worked for the storyline but in the real world serving soldiers would not have gone to their local school and told a class room full of kids how the place is littered with the corpses of children the same age as them. They would have used the usual spin that the MOD make them churn out about hearts and minds and building schools and handing out sweets. Perhaps they should really tell the truth? The film did keep me hooked as I had to know how things were going to turn out, for the worst obviously. In the end it was up to the viewer to decide what he or she thought was going to happen? Thought provoking , Yes. The MOD would not appreciate this film and would simply dismiss it out of hand and tell us how they have programmes in place to prevent this sort of thing happening for real, sadly the don’t have all the answers to a huge problem and the reality is there are lots and lots of `Suzies` and `Daves` out there, the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan will be around for a generation to come and regardless of whether the berets were shaped and the gun was silver I’m glad that In Our Name was made as highlighting PTSD takes priority over `props` and cheap throw away lines any day. Strong message worth watching.