Cinematic miscasting makes us the bad guys

Coming soon to a theater near you:

Barbaric invaders rape and murder a 14-year-old girl. They also murder her parents and 5-year-old sister.

Those extremely bad guys are U.S. Army soldiers in Iraq.

The movie is "Redacted."

The director, Brian De Palma of "Scarface" fame," recently told the Village Voice that he's trying to "show the other side" with that movie, which won him the best director award at the Venice International Film Festival and is scheduled to open in the U.S. on Nov. 16.

De Palma cited his 1989 film "Casualties of War" in explaining his decision to focus on a more recent atrocity: "You could do Haditha, you could do Abu Ghraib, but it clicked with me because I did a similar story with Vietnam, and, of course, you do, in fact, rape the country. It's a big metaphor. You destroy the country: burned, dead, ravished."

That's entertainment?

Evidently, these days it is. And the show will go on with lots of coming attractions that cast America as the Great Satan.

We're also up to no good in "Rendition," which hit theaters this weekend:

An American woman (Reese Witherspoon) can't find her Egyptian national husband when she goes to pick him up at the airport. He's been abducted by the CIA, which has turned him over to foreign "allies" whose inhuman interrogation methods leave no room for quibbling over "torture" definitions.

"In the Valley of Elah," already in theaters, follows the search of a Vietnam vet (Tommie Lee Jones) for his son, who disappears after returning from duty in Iraq, then turns up dead — permanently silenced about U.S. war crimes.

Hollywood was on our side in the 1940s. Why isn't it on our side now?

Times — and perceptions — change. And in our free country where our free movie market generally gives us what we want and deserve, filmmakers rightly retain creative license to show war's utter ugliness, which stains all sides.

Yet at least our side tries to contain it. The savagery dramatized by "Redacted" was committed 19 months ago in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. U.S. military courts have convicted three soldiers of murder and rape in that case, imposing sentences ranging from 90 to 110 years. A fourth defendant awaits trial.

So why can't we see a few more modern movies that cast today's truly bad guys — Islamic fanatics — as the heavies?

One inspiring exception: 1994's "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," with L.A. Police Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) coming out of retirement to foil a terrorist attack on the Academy Awards. In a particularly enlightening exchange, Papshmir (Raye Birk) complains: "My people are very upset." Muriel (Kathleen Freeman) replies: "Your people are always upset. They're Arab terrorists."

See, not all show-biz folks list to the loony left. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fred Thompson, like Ronald Reagan before them, have been successful both as actors and conservative politicians — if you fairly grade "The Governator" on a California curve.

Oscar-winning Robert Duvall, though no politician, endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president last month. Tony-winning actor Ron Silver, ex-Democrat turned hard-line hawk, did, too, pointing out that Giuliani "is committed to keeping our nation on the offense in the terrorists' war on us."

But the best conservative pitch from a show bizzer lately came last month on the CBS game show "The Power of 10" as a contestant pondered: "What percentage of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes for the government to provide universal health care?"

While waiting for the answer, the host quipped: "Personally, I can't wait for universal health care. From the folks that brought you FEMA, the TSA, the DMV, the IRS, comes universal health care. It's going to be fantastic, to have government in charge of our health."

That host was Drew Carey, who took over last week for retired Bob Barker as host of CBS' "The Price is Right." National Review has even hailed Carey as "one of the Right's most visible celebrities."

OK, so many on the Right will deem libertarian Carey's call for drug legalization wrong. OK, so a stand-up comic and ex-sitcom star who's now a game-show host isn't on Tinseltown's "A list."

But Charleston's Stephen Colbert is.

Isn't he?

While Colbert's not really a conservative, and his main schtick's poking fun at conservatives, we should welcome his "real man" entry to a so-far dreary presidential race. The Porter-Gaud grad announced on Tuesday night's "Colbert Report": "After nearly 15 minutes of soul searching, I have heard the call."

Colbert's even working fund-raising for S.C. public schools into his campaign act (check out donorschoose.org).

So his plan to run as a "Republicrat" in both parties' S.C. presidential primaries faces legal obstacles.

So he's not a "serious" candidate.

So what?

After checking out those "serious" candidates, and those "serious" movies that make us look so dastardly, we can seriously use some comic relief.

Frank Wooten is associate editor of The Post and Courier. His e-mail is wooten@postandcourier.com.