In the beginning we're introduced to a self proclaimed "rainbow chaser" who after making a small fortune fritters it away on phantom gold mines in SE Asia. Very quickly we discover that rather than deal with his personal life and family he'd rather chase the next "big thing". Subsequently through him we meet two World War II vets, both who promise finding looted treasures they had separately hid away during the war before coming home. From there the movie shifts to the slow discovery and uncovering of misremembered and forgotten deeds of our past that may haunt us all our lives and to the grave.The director filmed and edited over 250 hours of footage shot over 3 years and distilled it down to what we have here. Which at first comes across as a middle age man chasing after dreams of old men who are confused about their pasts and what they've done. To be even more meta one could say the director was chasing his own dream of film making via the treasure hunter. But as the end of the film approaches things solidify into something nearly transcendent.While there are no real buried chests dug up, what we do find is that time changes everything. It changes us and the world around us. Time can strip away the sharpness of what we remember, and we will easily tint our memories to only remember the good and block out the bad. But the things we've done and choices we make can affect us all our lives until we step up and deal with them. And that might be the real treasure of this film.

At this point of my movie-watching career, documentaries are pretty much all I watch. Still, I was blown away by the raw emotion on screen during "Loot." The film focuses on a modern-day treasure hunter named Lance who works with two separate World War II veterans to try to figure out where exactly they buried their specific treasure some 60 years ago.In many ways, this film embodies the best of documentary film-making. The camera captures all the action from start to finish, and brings the viewer in during the most critical parts of their adventure. Because the film-maker starts filming at the beginning of the story, he has no idea how the story will turn out - whether it will be a glorious story of 60 year old recollections materializing in the find of a lifetime, or whether it will be a sad tale of lost memories and questionable recollections. The uncertainty of everything makes this film so enjoyable to watch.And then there are the veterans. While previous commentators have questioned their sanity, I saw nothing but raw human emotion and character. To me, these two men seemed to be eminently truthful and real - while there memories were certainly dusty, they seemed to really believe what they were saying. In the end of the film, the viewer has really grown attached to the men at hand, making the final scenes even more emotional.All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable tale.

This film was truly depressing.What started out as an intriguing attempt to retrieve buried items, turned into a giant fool's errand. The two older gentlemen who claimed to have hidden treasure could have been suffering from inaccurate memories, or they could have made the stories up altogether. People returning from war have been known to fabricate or embellish events that are not able to be verified independently.I did not find the person from the Pacific war credible whatsoever--I suspect that his story was a confabulation which he told over and over until he believed it himself. His stories about multiple decapitations could be true, but I doubt it. His rambling manner, mispronunciations and overall demeanor would have convinced me to write him off immediately.The gentleman who had been in Germany was more credible, but I felt that he didn't know what he was talking about. He claimed that the treasure would still be where he left it, allegedly because people don't go up on their roofs that often. That statement, and others like it, convinced me that mentally, he was slipping badly, and none of his statements could be considered trustworthy.The person who really is a puzzlement is Lance. He's young enough to know better, yet seems as befuddled, clueless, impractical and disorganized as the older men.I don't know what kind of mental disorder a person would have to have to fly halfway around the world, more than once, looking for something that he doesn't even have a map of or a picture of. He did mention that one of his sons had a drug problem; I was not clear on whether Lance did also. A history of drug abuse could account for his inability to use logic or to think critically. I found myself worrying about his mental state. He has a family who is counting on him, and he does not appear to be very reliable or intelligent. I was touched by both of the older men when they stated that they suffered from painful, intrusive thoughts about the war. Those were the only times I felt any empathy or connection with the characters at all. Their grief over the war seemed genuine.