By Tessa Moran
“The Real Iron Man,” one viewer called the documentary Bulletproof Salesman during a Q&A following the film’s screening at the Silverdocs Film Festival. He was encouraging the filmmakers to take on the concept as a marketing avenue for the film. Q&A at these events often turns into an unwelcomed platform for viewers to share their own life stories, conspiracy theories, and “brilliant” marketing ideas. But the viewer’s comparison wasn’t half bad.
After all, the film’s main-character Fidelis Cloer, a German armored-vehicle salesman, is a war-profiteer just like Tony Stark. Only Cloer is selling protection, not weapons. He’s also a womanizer, which we fail to see in the film but later learn during Q&A. Still, this fact isn’t suprising from what character exploration we do see in the film.
Perhaps it is the ease with which Cloer travels in highly dangerous areas of Baghdad when conducting business. He is seemingly unaffected by the sight of burning buildings or the sound of gunfire; loads his automatic weapon in the car as if he were just buckling his seatbelt. Even so, Cloer is anything but reckless. Rather calculated in his entry into Iraq, just as could be expected from the never-fail heros played by Robert Downey Jr., Jason Statham or Bruce Willis. He stays in hotels located nearest to military posts, and wears a Keffiyeh (traditional Middle Eastern male headdress) as disguise. He rarely travels in “soft-skin” cars, ever-confident in the armored protection of his vehicles.
Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker are extremely successful in visually developing Cloer’s character – smooth, calculated and confident. In one scene, Cloer methodically clips his fingernails as he explains that looking sharp is essential to gaining trust from clients. In another scene, he sits in an armored car as a client shoots rounds of bullets at it. A good salesman must always believe in his product, he says.
These scenes set the stage for some level of action from Cloer, and yet the film fails to fully deliver on our expectations. It comes close during one scene in which Cloer and his colleagues notice they are being followed on the highway by a couple of suspicious-looking vehicles. We see the cars nearing in the rear-view mirror… Cloer loads his gun… the suspense builds… and then it is uttlerly squashed by the most irritating screen text telling us exactly what we are seeing.
This wasn’t the only instance of the VH1-like pop-ups, which appeared frequently throughout the film, particularly in the beginning. Coupled with punchy music, the pop-ups set the tone for more of a music video or cheesy reality show than a cinema verite documentary. Thankfully, the text pop-ups petered out towards the end of the film.
Despite the distraction, the filmmakers were able to tell an unnerving, yet compelling story about the business of war. As the story unveils, viewers are conflicted over how to define Cloer. Is he the action hero we want to root for, or the villain war-profiteer we despise? Though Cloer admits flatly that war is “good for business”, in doing that business, he is also saving lives. Can the ends justify the means? The film’s greatest success is in exposing this duality without seeking to answer it.
