Saturday, November 12, 2011

General Butt Naked

Unfortunately, this is not a comedy.

General Butt Naked 

The Redemption of General Butt Naked is the title of a documentary about a crazy warlord who admits to being responsible for the deaths of over 20,000 people during Liberia's civil war. The "Butt Naked" refers to the training technique he used of having his warriors fight carrying weapons (swords and guns) but wearing no clothing. It would be comical if it were not about mass murder. But the general has recanted his past and has become a preacher who travels the country attempting to personally make up for his past mistakes to the families of his victims.

This is one of those subjects that you would think would be a slam dunk for a filmmaker. Unfortunately, this film is long, poorly edited, and poorly structured. They did get on film his apologies to the survivors of his attacks, including a young girl who was blinded as a baby, and these scenes are very moving, but it's a shame that as a whole the film does not stand up as well as a few individual scenes. It's definitely worth watching for these short scenes though.

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