Amos Lassen wrote on 06/02/2010:

“Triage”

A Look at War

Amos Lassen

Mike Walsh, a war photographer, was in Iraq with his best friend, David to film the Kurd uprising. This is that story.
Dr. Talzani built a makeshift hospital in a cave and it was there that he treated those who had been fatally wounded. When the two journalists follow fighters to the next battle, David made a mistake and took a wrong turn. Mark was injured and did not see his friend again. We see here that the message is that the survivors carry the legacy of war. Here we have an apathetic protagonist who is filled with guilt and doubt. The plot does not show that it is important to bring him home but rather to restore inner peace to him so that he can live a life of “normalcy”.
I see the film as a kind of self help manual for those who have been traumatized by war as we see in Mike Walsh (Colin Farrell). The film is quite tricky in structure as we see behavior that is incomprehensible with emphasis on the psychological tragedy on Walsh. We see war as an abomination of all that is human/
This is not an easy film to watch but the performances are riveting throughout. Definitely a worth wile movie to watch, regardless of its overthrowing qualities and contrived passions. A traumatized war photo-journalist returns home from Kurdistan and it is not just the pictures that he took, he is consulted by the psychiatrist and the movie unfolds. The movie hits rock bottom when his psychiatrist tells him "We can't take the pain away, we have to live with it forever...this is called life" when the protagonist is lying on his bed. Colin Farrell’s acting is great like always, but this movie seems to be well behind its time. It doesn't lead us anywhere; nonetheless this movie is different than others in the respect that, it doesn't attenuate like other movies. It only gets denser after every minute of it. This is a great story with potential but I guess I was expecting too much.