2012 Academy Award Nomination — Best Documentary Feature

Hell and Back Again trailer - youtube

Wow, just checked this documentary out and it's top notch. It's listed as an 100% on RT which made me skeptical considering their somewhat steady formulas for movie genres but lived up to such a high score.

The film follows Marine Sgt. Nathan Harris throughout his tour in Afghanistan that ends with him being severely wounded in the hip/leg. It then follows his struggles with everyday life back in the states with a life changing injury. The film uses very well placed editing between HD footage of the marines fighting in Afghanistan while fluidly transitioning back to Sgt. Harris as he struggles with life back home while injured.
I'm a big fan of documentaries on our current military involvements (restrepo, taxi to the dark side, etc..) but this one takes the cake. It showcases everything that such a highly rated film as this strives to accomplish. It's eye opening, frustrating, and shows the every day difficulties our military faces with locals, while at the same time incorporating Sgt. Harris' battle to get back to as functional as possible.
I normally wound never make such a detailed review but I really think it's something everyone should watch (and likely enjoy.)

Critic Quotes:

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We're left to decide which wounds go the deepest, those from Afghanistan or those caused by the confusion and emotional barrages he continues to suffer in America.

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Dennis's film attempts something few documentaries have: to inhabit the psyche of its subject.

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Dennis, a photojournalist, has produced a vérité work of almost distracting beauty-a haunting quality in a film that operates in the apolitical mode of choice for recent combat docs, but is nevertheless inarguably about the cost of war.

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Working alone with a camera and his ingenuity, Dennis captured the surreality of firefights with an invisible enemy and the frustration of displaced civilians.