Your Company
 

Armadillo

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Denmark · 2010
1h 45m
Director Janus Metz Pedersen
Starring Rasmus, Mads 'Mini', Daniel 'Olby', Kim 'Birkerod'
Genre Documentary, War

Stationed at the forward operating base Armadillo, Danish soldiers Mads and Daniel are on their first mission in Helmand, Afghanistan, attempting to ward off the Taliban and stabilize the region. Yet, as their duties becomes more and more difficult, their mental fortitude is challenged and the senselessness of war becomes increasingly apparent.

Stream Armadillo

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

80

Village Voice by

While much of Armadillo echoes last year's "Restrepo," the unprecedented access of director Janus Metz and cameraman Lars Skree reveals the alternating waves of frontline tedium and terror with fresh immediacy.

80

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

The achievement of this film is to forestall and complicate easy judgment. You emerge shaken and bothered, which may sound like a reason not to see the movie. It is actually the opposite.

100

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

It's a brilliant work of cinema, a nonfiction film as intense and visceral as any drama, and an emotional and moral experience that feels horrifying and exhilarating at almost the same moment.

80

Time Out by Eric Hynes

It's a sickening but stunning portrait of combat that looks past notions of bravery or brutality, guilt or innocence, to bear witness to a thoroughly besieged humanity.

80

Variety by Leslie Felperin

If nothing else, Armadillo proves just how well "The Hurt Locker" captured the mixture of boredom, fear, brutality and locker-room machismo that makes up the day-to-day routine of a frontline soldier.

80

The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett

While the men are Danish, there is a universality to their story and a vitality in the filmmaking that should see the documentary in demand around the world.

67

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

For their part, the Danes are either having more of an adventure or covering up their trauma with chest-thumping braggadocio; almost to a man, they're ready to come back for more.

50

Movieline by Stephanie Zacharek

Armadillo tells us lots of things we shouldn't be so naïve as to think we don't already know. Maybe we need to see these things again and again, just so we don't lose sight of the costs and risks of the wars in which American and European soldiers are currently engaged.

Users who liked this film also liked