Posted on 03/01/2010 5:54:50 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
Time magazine called "The Hurt Locker" "a near-perfect war film," but Ryan Gallucci, an Iraq war veteran, had to turn the movie off three times, he says, "or else I would have thrown my remote through the television."
Critics adore the film and it has been nominated for nine Oscars -- a feat matched only by "Avatar," the top-grossing movie of all time -- but Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says that's "nine more Oscar nominations than it deserves. I don't know why critics love this silly, inaccurate film so much," he wrote on his Facebook page.
Many in the military say "Hurt Locker" is plagued by unforgivable inaccuracies that make the most critically acclaimed Iraq war film to date more a Hollywood fantasy than the searingly realistic rendition that civilians take it for.
To which you might say: It's just a movie and an action flick at that. It's Tinseltown fiction -- an interpretation of war such as "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now." It's supposed to entertain. It's not a documentary, not real life.
But to those who were there, Iraq is real life. And they're very sensitive -- some would say overly so -- when their war is portrayed via a central character who is a reckless rogue.
Hence a rising backlash from people in uniform, such as this response on Rieckhoff's Facebook page from a self-identified Army Airborne Ranger:
"[I]f this movie was based on a war that never existed, I would have nothing to comment about ... not based on a true story, but on a true war ... which I have seen my friends killed, a war in which I witnessed my ranger buddy get both his legs blown off. So for Hollywood to glorify this crap (snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
God bless you and your family for your service to our country.
Haven’t seen it and now I don’t plan to based on this report.
I saw the movie and thought it was excellent. Who cares what the WaPo has to say? If people cared as much as the libs thought they did the paper wouldn’t be in danger of going out of business.
That explains everything.
I watched it for what it was: Pure Holly-Weird fiction with a lot of underlying psychobabble west coast liberal fecus floating just below the surface.....
but other than that, it was interesting...
RLTW
My dad served over there and I still enjoyed the movie even if it was “just a movie and an action flick at that. It’s Tinseltown fiction”.
If you know anything about how actual combat ops work, or even real police work, then you can get pissed off at every movie portraying either.
I thought the movie was a great piece of story telling and plausible to someone had been nowhere near the middle east conflict zone.
I’m sure all kinds of details were off the mark like the guy standing the the street for an hour suited up with a bomb that finally went off at the end of the film.
No way that guy would be just standing there with the timer.
Ditto that!!!
It really comes down to, who’s in the white house, when it comes to how hollywood depicts war in a movie. When Clinton was in office, all we got were, heroic films of presidents and the things they did, including war. When Bush was president, hollywood depicted war as evil, perpetrated by an evil president who was bringing the disdain of the whole world down on America’s shoulders.
I have not seen the movie or served in the terror wars, but I can guess, that while a democrat is in the white house, all depictions war are righteous, and the president directing the war “Struggles” to do the “moral” things needed to execute a “moral” war.
“No, says David McKenna, a film professor at Columbia University...”
...classsic WaPo....get a professor to comment...they are military illiterates and their distain of the Army goes back to VietNam.
Other headlines from the Washington Post:
Some World War II veterans criticize movies ‘Twelve O’Clock High’, ‘Battleground’, ‘Band of Brothers’ as inaccurate
Some Korean war veterans criticize movies ‘Bridges at Toko-Ri’, ‘Pork Chop Hill’ as inaccurate
Some Vietnam war veterans criticize movie ‘We Were Soldiers’ as inaccurate
A simple (but contrived) story about a war lover that has been done better, much better, in other movies. Blackhawk Down, for example, immediately comes to mind as a much better contemporary war movie. The camaraderie in the Hurt Locker rang false and the acting was no great shakes. Just another instance of Hollywood adopting an emperor with no clothes.
That's his unvarnished critique.
Every war movie is inaccurate compared to the real thing. Most concentrate on a few aspects because they can’t portray all.
True, but this one was mind-blowingly inaccurate.
And unfortunately, those inaccuracies made our brave fighting men and women look like a bunch of reckless, hyper-emotioinal, totally undisciplined yahoos.
I had to quit watching it (at the point they decided to go off on their own and exact some justice after conducting a forensic examination, in the dark, as fires still raged and victims were still awaiting treatment in an unsecured area) because I felt so bad for the technical consultant.
I put a lot of this down to the fault of conservatives, who could have made a fortune, with the full cooperation of the US military, using real veterans reenacting their stories and roles, and Iraqis as extras, *in Iraq*, but didn’t.
It is said that the villains make the movie, and I imagine the Iraqis would have no problem at all in showing the world the hideous barbarities inflicted on them by Saddam and his Baathists, and al-Qaeda. (As long as they were *heavily* disguised, so that they would not be falsely accused by someone who couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.)
If a filmmaker pulled out all the emotional stops, such a movie could have earned hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ironically, the heroes of the movie would be less the Americans, who were there to *help*, sadly looking on at the terrible destruction inflicted on that nation, but on those Iraqis who bravely fought the evil to a standstill with that help.
This would be because while the Americans could be as sympathetic as all get out, the incredible passion in the movie, the agonizing lows and the exhilarating highs, would be the Iraqis.
Undoubtedly the movie would be called propaganda, even though it accurately showed what really happened. And the American left would writhe about it. But even with direct to DVD sales, it would have made a tremendous fortune.
Instead we are left with just the crap that Hollywood wanted to crank out.
It does contain inaccuracies (and I tell people this when I lend them the movie), but it's still well done and certainly entertaining.
Are you still in-country?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.