Mark Cuban

[Madmiles442]

Actually, among the sports-junkies, he's the best Owner we have in town and is very well liked. He's the only one that wants a winner no matter the cost. And if you could sell your home-grown passion for

The movie, Redacted, does not center around our troops raping a 14 yr old and murdering her family. While it is apparent that this horrific event did happen, it more centers around the unbelievable, neverending stress and pressure our troops are under. From everything I've read, Brian DePalma (Scarface, Untouchables, etc) was determined to show the film as an anti-war message while Cuban used his editing trump card to leave it unbiased, almost to the point of being pro-American.

An excerpt from Cuban's blog (http://www.blogmaverick.com/)

The movie is about what soldiers of every walk of life go through on a daily basis in Iraq. The challenge of facing 99pct of the day bored to tears, while at the same time being terrified that you never know who the enemy really is. Kids can be just kids, or they can be placing IEDs. Women can be just wives, or sisters or mothers, or they can be suicide bombers. Telling each from the other is impossible.

The movie is about this impossible position that soldiers are put into. No amount of training can prevent the humanity that comes from our soldiers , yet is the very trait that puts them in harm's way. No amount of training can prepare them for seeing their friends die. This film recognizes that 99.9 pct of our forces cope with it and do their jobs. That each knows that among their peers , some may have a breaking point, and they do all they can to prevent them from reaching that breaking point. But they arent, and cant always be successful.

This movie is so far from being anti troops. You can't watch this movie without it smacking you across the face that the battles that come with serving our country are as much mental and emotional as they are physical. That the weight and burden of survival they must carry every minute of every day is incomprehensible . You cant watch this movie without your heart going out to each and every serviceperson who is put in harms way.

When a couple of the servicepeople crack from the pressure, they dont become the story. They become one more burden that everyone else associated with them must carry. They become one more obstacle to be conquered, and that is conquered.

I recognize what the Director Brian DePalma set out to do . He wanted to make a movie about the horrors of war. He did it. He wanted to send an anti war message. Whether or not he accomplished that, will probably depend on your perspective before you saw the movie.

The horror comes not from generalizing about the troops in some negative way as some would have you believe. Not at all. The horror in this movie is a demand that we all respect the fact that those who serve our country face a ubiquitous pressure to survive against insurmountable odds. That those of us at home have no earthly idea just how horrific that pressure to survive is. That this understanding of what our troops go through has been "Redacted" from the media here at home.