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Battle for Haditha
Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 12
  3. Negative: 1 out of 12
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    100
    Searing, powerful, and morally entangled.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    80
    With its dialogue largely improvised by many who had seen extensive combat in Iraq, Battle for Haditha has a gripping authenticity lacking in other similarly themed dramas.
  3. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    Battle for Haditha has some of the raw energy of Sam Fuller's war pictures, which weren't subtle but left you energized by their ambivalence (there was no good or evil). It's a hell of a picture.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    80
    Intense, fair-minded entry in the pileup of Iraq pictures.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    75
    Unsubtle but gripping.
  6. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    70
    Largely improvised, cast with ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees and shot in Jordan. It might just be the movie this war has been waiting for.
  7. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Anthony Kaufman
    70
    An engaging Iraqudrama that straddles the line between blistering exposé and Spielbergian heart-tugger.
  8. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    Lacking in subtlety and nuance, Broomfield's nerve-jangling movie nonetheless succeeds in showing the war from various vantage points. And from wherever one's standing, the view is profoundly disturbing.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    Mr. Broomfield maintains a level of cool detachment throughout. That's to the good of the movie, which, though technically exemplary, falters dramatically on occasion, becoming dangerously close to overheated whenever the characters speak for any length.
  10. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    50
    Broomfield's film is didactic, awkwardly acted by the cast of former Marines who are meant to lend the film credibility, and clumsily inflammatory.
  11. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    Broomfield, whose celebrity exposés are known for their intrusiveness and innuendo, lost me with his gentle shower scene between an Iraqi woman and her husband; even if it wasn't invented, is it really any of our business?
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    The film is an exposé only of a filmmaker's senseless contempt for the military.
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