“Body of War” is best when it trains its focus on Tomas Young, a paralyzed Iraq War veteran, and his determination to protest the war. The movie tries to do other things, with varying degrees of success, but Young’s story is strong stuff.
The film, directed by talk-show host Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, follows Young over three years of his life. In 2004, at age 24, Young went to Iraq and was shot in the collarbone four days after his arrival. The bullet went though his spine and he was paralyzed from the chest down.
Young had enlisted the day after seeing President Bush walk through the ruins of the World Trade Center, and he wanted to go to Afghanistan and get the people who committed the heinous crimes of Sept. 11. Now, in his lectures, he asks why he was sent to Iraq instead.
When it covers his political activities, the movie is potent. When it focuses on Young’s personal battle, it is eloquent.
His wedding, to a woman he met before his injury, is one of the first things we witness in the film. Their marriage is strained by her immediate duty to be his nurse as well as his wife, and their sex life is frankly discussed.
The film does not shy away from examining, in frank detail, realities of Young’s physical life — his urinary needs, for instance.
Sixty years ago, in “The Best Years of Our Lives,” the disabled vet Harold Russell was shown going through his routine of getting in and out of his prosthetic arms. These sequences in “Body of War” have a similar impact.
Donahue and Spiro (who do not appear in the movie) also weave in other anti-war issues, notably the Senate’s vote on authorizing Bush’s powers on Iraq. We see speeches from the Senate floor in 2002, some of which now sound ludicrous (although laughter will probably stick in your throat).
The film returns again and again to Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who’s had a checkered life and a long Senate career. Byrd’s taste for flowery oratory turned passionate in 2002, when he railed against the looming war with Iraq, and excerpts from his speeches punctuate the roll call of “yea” and “nay” votes — each voter’s name is emblazoned on the screen, so you can remember them.
This is a useful punch-in-the-face device (even if the abundance of sappy music almost wrecks it), but Tomas Young’s story is still the heart of the picture. That portrait of grace under pressure comes through loud and clear.
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