X
- 2011
- Not Rated
- New Video
- 1 h 28 m
- 2011
- Not Rated
- New Video
- 1 h 28 m
Summary In 2009, U.S. Marines launched a major helicopter assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. Within hours of being dropped deep behind enemy lines, 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris’s unit is attacked from all sides. Embedded in Echo Company during the assault, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis captures the fron...
Directed By: Danfung Dennis
- 2011
- Not Rated
- New Video
- 1 h 28 m
- 2011
- Not Rated
- New Video
- 1 h 28 m
Hell and Back Again
6.4
Where to Watch
Summary In 2009, U.S. Marines launched a major helicopter assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. Within hours of being dropped deep behind enemy lines, 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris’s unit is attacked from all sides. Embedded in Echo Company during the assault, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis captures the fron...
Directed By: Danfung Dennis
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
81
100% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
81
100% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
In its closing scenes, Hell and Back Again builds to an emotional and stylistic power that we didn't see coming.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 User Ratings
6.4
36% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
64% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 User Ratings
6.4
36% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
64% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Dennis's film attempts something few documentaries have: to inhabit the psyche of its subject.
As vital as the best war chronicles to come out in recent years, this is one every American ought to see.
You can feel just how jarring and stressful it must be for a soldier to go from the life-and-death adrenaline rush of war to the maddeningly slow world of rehabilitation and forced inactivity.
The film portrays the dizzying divide between war and recovery eloquently enough that those choices seem like intrusions instead of connections, a misstep in what's otherwise a devastating profile of a soldier.
Unlike most war documentaries, which tend to only skim the surface of its gun-toting subjects' lives, photojournalist Danfung Dennis's Hell and Back Again isn't content to merely capture warriors in combat.
Another year, another war documentary. This time, filmmaker Danfung Dennis turns the eye of his camera on Nathan Harris, a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, who leads his 2nd platoon further into insurgent strongholds in hopes of turning the tide of war in Afghanistan. The opening of the film features a firefight between U.S. forces and insurgents in the area where Lance Corporal Charles Sharp is killed in action, bringing the violence home for many viewers.
The film then announces, via title cards, that Sergeant Nathan Harris is severely wounded in combat, and he has returned home with a fractured pelvis and severely broken leg from a bullet that tore through his right side. This part of the film focuses on Harrisâ
Report
After hearing about Hell and Back Again on NPR I was hoping for a poignant documentary about the horrors of coming back from war (The Hurt Locker, Jarhead, or Restrepo (I know the first two are Hollywood movies)), but the whole movie felt flat to me. Maybe the hero, Sergeant Nathan Harris, didn't let the viewers inside emotionally. Maybe it was that lake of a music score? I'm not quite sure, the film just didn't do it for me.
Report
Production Company
Roast Beef Productions,
Sabotage Films Vienna,
Thought Engine Media Group
Release Date Oct 1, 2011
Duration 1 h 28 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Website
http://www.hellandbackagain.com/
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Nomination
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Sundance Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
