Review by Justin Bateman
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 80 minutes | Directed by Richard Parry
Aged 23 and straight out of art school, Robert King from Tennessee heads to Sarajevo where the war in Yugoslavia has just begun. His plan is not just to make it as a photojournalist but to win the Pulitzer Prize, preferably to be the youngest winner ever. But while his enthusiasm is admirable it seems almost to be negated by his naivety – at one point he is on the frontline wearing a bright white t-shirt – and almost complete lack of knowledge of the events unfolding around him.
From his early days struggling to get work through to getting his photographs on the front page of The Guardian newspaper and later Time magazine, this documentary charts his progress intercut with present day footage of him recalling the years spent at war. He’s a bright, likeable chap which makes the journey with him an interesting one, especially as he analyses what it is he’s doing and why he’s doing it, both during and after the conflicts he reports on. Is he addicted to the danger? Hell yeah.
After Sarajevo, we follow him to Chechnya where some truly shocking scenes and images are portrayed – this is not a film for the fainthearted. However, it’s never gratuitous or overused and provides a powerful reminder of what war is all about, despite his increasing maturity and the distance he is able to put between himself and the events he witnesses on a daily basis.
Shooting Robert King is a worthy topic for anyone interested in journalism and how war affects everyone involved. In some ways, being a journalist has a lot of parallels with being a soldier on the frontline so in the end this is a film about war at least as much as it is a reporter’s story. Sometimes amusing, sometimes horrific, this is unlikely to trouble the bestseller list but is a solidly interesting documentary nevertheless.
EXTRAS ★★★ An audio commentary with Richard Parry and producer Vaughan Smith; a series of short featurettes: the Making of ‘Shooting Robert King’; Riding Shotgun with the King; The Story of Frontline News; Director’s War Story; Un Corruption Story, The Frontline Club; as well as three deleted scenes, a stills gallery and the trailer. A decent package to go with the main feature.