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Is it okay to hate a movie before you've seen it? I hated Nick Broomfield’s movie Battle For Haditha from the first few moments into the seven-minute trailer.But at least one Marine doesn’t think I’m being fair.Elliot Ruiz is the lead actor in the film. He plays Corporal Ramirez—a character based on the real-life Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich. Ruiz was also a real Marine. He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The war ended for him in April 2004 when an Iraqi drove a car through barbed wire at a checkpoint, and the wire almost tore Ruiz’s leg apart. We had...

The mockudrama "Battle for Haditha" is going to be making its US premeire in May. As part of the publicity blitz for the fictionalized version of the incident at Haditha, Eliot Ruiz, who portrays Cpl. Ramirez (aka Staff Sgt Frank Wuterich) is making the rounds in his hometown of Philly. It's disgusting that a worthless piece of fiction is presented as a "docudrama" of the events on November 19, 2005. But what is worse is former Marines portraying those whose honor and service were forever tarnished in the Murtha-inspired witch-hunt. "...When I first heard about Nick's film I wasn't sure...

Dan Rather immortalized the phrase "fake but accurate". Now a Marine-turned-actor tells the media that Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha is "not true-true but the basics are there". The actor is Montreal-born Eric Mehalacopoulos who stars in Broomfield's slanderous film about Haditha. Broomfield brings to life Congressman Murtha's account of enraged Marines, extracting vengence for an IED, by indiscriminately slaughtering innocent Iraqis. "Not true-true" is at odds with director Broomfield who bills his latest film (which received its world premiere in Toronto this past week) as "the unflinching true story". But after five hearings regarding the incident in Haditha, Murtha's...

Nick Broomfield is making a film about the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians and insurgents by US marines in Haditha. He will begin shooting in Jordan this November using a small film crew and non-actors for the principal roles. On November 19 2005, a roadside bomb in the Sunni town of Haditha killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. The US military initially claimed that 15 civilians had died in the blast, but then said that the civilians were accidentally shot by marines during a gun battle with insurgents. However, eyewitness accounts and a video shot by a local journalist have suggested...

[Nick Broomfield's] new project, Haditha, [is] a dramatisation of the massacre in November 2005, when a company of US marines shot dead up to 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, after a Marine NCO had been killed by an improvised explosive device....[His previous film] was a generic fictionalised narrative, this will be a dramatised reconstruction. Shortly after the screening the team left for Jordan where he is filming now.Surprisingly Broomfield was able to interview some of the Marines involved in the incident. "We spent five days in a motel in San Diego interviewing them for probably 10 hours a...

NORTH CASTLE At just age 26, Andrew McLaren has already had many roles in his life - soldier, bodyguard, playboy and, most recently, family man and political candidate. The North Castle man is now trying his hand at another venture - acting. He's starring in "Battle for Haditha," a film scheduled for release in January. It is based on allegations that Marines killed 24 Iraqis - including women and children - during a 2005 rampage in that Iraqi city. "I kind of wanted to live a full life and do whatever I wanted to do," McLaren said recently about his...

Nicholas and Barney Broomfield (a father and son film-making team) have begun promoting their film, The Battle for Haditha. The film purports to "reenact" the incident in Haditha by showing deranged Marines slaughtering unarmed civilians in cold blood. In an interview in Britian's The First Post, Barney Broomfield says this... "Spending so much time so close to these guys [the Marine actors in the film] I realised it is much harder to blame the troops for some of the things that happen in war," Broomfield concludes. "It's much harder to point the finger when you know these are just young...

The Battle for Haditha, an upcoming motion picture previewed at Cannes, claims to present a true story. Actually, it is a dramatization of Congressman Murtha's now discredited account of the Haditha "massacre". While Murtha may have no direct involvement with the film, it is the latest example of the ongoing damage his distortions have done. We've passed the point where an apology from Murtha will suffice. He must correct the record as loudly as he created the myth. ___________________________ Had to skip Cannes this year? Here are the opening titles of a preview you missed: For a full-size image,...

Nick Broomfield's slanderous depiction of United States Marines killing civilians in cold-blood in Haditha on November 19, 2005 will receive its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 6-15, according to the Globe and Mail and a list of films posted by IndieWire.Today's Globe and Mail says about the festival: "Controversial British filmmaker Nick Broomfield is also likely to create a stir with The Battle for Haditha, a dramatic account of one of the blackest days of the Iraq war when U.S. Marines slaughtered 24 Iraqis, including women and children." Broomfield based his movie on wildly speculative stories...