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75Combines an insider's perspective with what can only be described as gutsy cinematography.
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70While the film loses focus along the way, it has enough moving and powerful moments to make it a worthy entry in an increasingly crowded genre.
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70Much of the picture is exciting and terrifying.
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70Their access is far broader than any TV network's, and in the end, they transcended the body counts and bland abstractions that characterize most Western reporting on the war.
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Though Mr. Berends strays too often, he does so down some compelling paths. His material is intimate and hair-raising, granting us rare access to scenes inside mosques, at a Shiite militia rally and in homes under fire.
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67Whatever The Blood Of My Brother's journalistic weaknesses, it's valuable as yet another view of what may end up being the most thoroughly documented war ever waged.
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63This at-times harrowing, occasionally unfocused film is a case study of one of hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of Iraqi civilians to whom the war has hit home and left holes in families. It makes you rue the most indelicate of all combat euphemisms - "collateral damage."
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63Attempts at balance through interviews with unidentified U.S. soldiers is halfhearted at best. In the end, Berends sacrifices coherence for the sake of a story he's determined to tell, rather than focusing on the one that's practically telling itself.
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60A few American soldiers are interviewed in a halfhearted attempt at balance, but Berends, who thankfully eschews narration, makes his own p.o.v. clear enough.
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60Made with access to the Mehdi Army and embittered citizens the Western news media -- or even the CIA -- might envy, producer-helmer-lenser Andrew Berends creates a revealing insight into the war in Iraq from the locals' POV.
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50Despite some remarkable unembedded footage, Andrew Berends' is yet another disappointingly superficial, unfocused and one-sided documentary on the conflict in Iraq.