In one of the many soldier's-eye views in The War Tapes, a US infantryman rides shotgun in a Humvee and delivers a note-perfect recital of Bush's pro-war rhetoric. "We will ensure freedom and democracy," he deadpans. "After that, we're going to buy everyone in the world a puppy."

The banter plays remarkably similar to something out of Full Metal Jacket, but what transpires here isn't merely based on fact. Billing itself as the first documentary filmed by frontline troops, Deborah Scranton's film is a barely distilled sequence of events -- from the eve of deployment in Iraq to the hangover of coming home -- as it unfolds in front of mini-DV cameras operated by five New Hampshire National Guardsmen.

Three of these de facto journalists end up shaping the narrative of the film, and Scranton has selected them carefully: the dark-humoured carpenter and aspiring writer, the politically moderate (read: non-Republican) Lebanese immigrant who speaks Arabic and the stay-the-course blue-collar dad. All are highly articulate citizen soldiers, all have differing opinions on the cause. (Though the men are united in their hatred of the job and in their bitterness toward war-profiteers Haliburton, whose convoys "of cheese" their mission requires them to protect from roadside attacks.) For better and worse, the director doesn't tamper with the soldiers' experiences or their views, even as the former converge to confuse the latter.