The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say. In a break with past convention, when films based on real conflicts were made only years after the last shots were fired, several politically-charged films have gone on release while America remains embroiled in Iraq.

Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.

“Rendition,” a drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal about the CIA’s policy of outsourcing interrogation of terror suspects, has taken just under 10 million dollars at the box office, a disastrous return.

Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis’s latest film “In the Valley of Elah,” about a father investigating the death of his son in Iraq, earned favorable reviews but less than seven million dollars following its release in September.

Even the action-packed “The Kingdom,” starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner, fell well below its 70 million budget with around 47 million dollars in ticket sales.

The poor returns do not augur well for more war films due for release in North America later this month, notably the Robert Redford-directed drama “Lions for Lambs” and Brian De Palma’s hard-hitting “Redacted,” based on the real-life rape and murder of an Iraqi schoolgirl by US soldiers.

Lew Harris, the editor of website Movies.com, said the films have struggled to be successful because the subject matters of Iraq and 9/11 remain too close to home. And in many cases, the films have not been entertaining enough.

“These movies have to be entertaining,” Harris told AFP. “You can’t just take a movie and make it anti-war or anti-torture and expect to draw people in.

“That’s what happened with ‘Rendition’ and it has been a disaster,” he said.

“People want war movies to have a slam-bang adventure feel to them … But Iraq is a difficult war to portray in a kind of rah-rah-rah, exciting way.

Difficult because they’re rooting against success.

We saved 25 million people from an evil dictator, who was tried convicted and hanged. The short war that made that possible was a brilliant military victory that disproved the dire predictions of elitist pundits (500,000 would be killed, thousands of refugees etc.)