Battle for Haditha Synopsis & Summary

The fate of two cultures becomes locked on a tragic collision course in director Nick Broomfield's dramatization of the events that led to the massacre of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children by American Marines. A squadron of American soldiers goes speeding across the Iraqi desert in a convoy of armored Humvees, eventually stopping at a local store where the soldiers jump out to stretch and browse the DVD selection. Meanwhile, as the Marines strike up a conversation with the young male clerk behind the counter, two Iraqi men climb into the back of a pick-up truck to get a crash course in IED mechanics. Both the Marines and the Iraqis are simply going about their daily business as usual, just doing their best to survive in a land where war is just another fact of life. For the Marines it's all about patrolling the desert and waiting for the next bomb to go off. When a roadside IED kills one Marine and wounds two others, the vengeance with which the American soldiers strike back at the locals may cause even the most hard-line warhawks to take pause and consider the true cost of a war which has no end in sight. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide