The Inspec­tion

Wel­come to the US mil­i­tary, a kha­ki-coloured world of grit­ted teeth, repres­sion and rigid­i­ty con­fined to cor­ri­dors, show­ers and fields. This is the world of Ele­gance Bratton’s The Inspec­tion, where the upper ranks are in the busi­ness of con­struct­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of furi­ous­ly servile automa­ta on a sweaty pro­duc­tion line. The impos­ing colonel Leland Laws (Bokeem Wood­bine) takes this image fur­ther, in a moment hewn of grim deter­mi­na­tion and bit­ter spit­tle – ​“Our job is not to make Marines, it’s to make monsters.”

But Ellis French, ele­gant­ly embod­ied by Jere­my Pope, is not a mon­ster – he’s a dam­aged 25-year-old fresh of the streets, who wants his homo­pho­bic mum to love him, and for the oth­er Marines to stop haz­ing the fuck out of him. Based on a young Brat­ton, the film unrav­els from the director’s mem­o­ry, thin­ly fic­tion­alised and with all the raw­ness that comes with try­ing to reen­ter one’s tor­ment­ed younger brain.

Although Ellis meets and some­times exceeds the phys­i­cal require­ments to enlist, he fails to dis­guise his sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and is relent­less­ly degrad­ed and abused by both instruc­tors and fel­low recruits because of this. Ten­sions run high and per­for­mances are tight. Claus­tro­pho­bic cin­e­matog­ra­phy, replete with lock­er-room shots of ath­let­ic bod­ies as the cam­era fol­lows Ellis’ repressed desires, ensure that the cab­in fever and pure dis­com­fort of the future sol­diers’ expe­ri­ence is empha­sised to the point where the fault isn’t entire­ly theirs.

They are pushed to their men­tal and phys­i­cal lim­its, denied con­tact with the out­side world bar a sin­gle phone call and mag­a­zine clip­pings of tits sent in the post. This snarling machis­mo, sit­u­a­tion­al­ly enforced and encour­aged, is sel­dom punc­tu­at­ed by moments of humil­i­ty, though these do increase as the end of their incar­cer­a­tion nears. The most sym­pa­thet­ic char­ac­ter is Ros­ales, played expert­ly by Raúl Castil­lo, the only instruc­tor who has time for Ellis. Tough but under­stand­ing, he acts as some­thing of a guide.

Set short­ly post ⁹⁄₁₁, the film reflects some caus­ti­cal­ly racist sen­ti­ments that were promi­nent as well as the homo­pho­bia. Mid­dle East­ern recruit Ismail (Eman Esfan­di) is also tor­ment­ed, told that he looks like the ene­my who they’ll short­ly be aim­ing their guns at. Ellis, com­pas­sion­ate despite the lack of com­pas­sion he receives, com­forts Ismael. His sen­si­tiv­i­ty is clear­ly not warped by the insti­tu­tion, and that is a kind of vic­to­ry. But The Inspec­tion remains unsure of itself, and of its message.

The mil­i­tary is nei­ther glo­ri­fied nor thor­ough­ly crit­i­cised – not that it must be either, just that hints of both are hard to jug­gle. The hero not only sur­vives, but suc­ceeds in becom­ing a part of the sys­tem that has made him so unwel­come, and has gone on to make an ambigu­ous film about it – are we to feel heart­ened or dis­mayed? Although the recruits stand up for Ellis in the face of his mother’s bru­tal rejec­tion, have their opin­ions changed? That starchy, prob­lem­at­ic phrase ​‘for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence’ springs to mind…The Inspec­tion is a pow­er­ful yet unset­tling­ly incon­clu­sive account of an impor­tant, haunt­ing peri­od in a man’s past.