Posted on 01/26/2016 8:19:40 AM PST by rktman
Thanks for the honest assessment. That’s the feeling I got from what I’ve heard. Sounds like the movie doesn’t add much if you’ve already watched the interview with the actual participants and have seen the actual sequence of events.
Mick LaSalles’ assessment: “This is a strange war movie, in that it’s not stirring, but dispiriting, though it takes the form of a typical war movie. It’s about 13 very, very tough hours in the lives of six CIA security men, who have to fight off waves of attackers during a standoff at a Libyan security compound. Fairly well-made, if a little long...”
“Not stirring”, but maybe more of a blow-by-blow account of what happened. To me Zero Dark Thirty told you what happened and WAS stirring. Thoughts?
It does a very good job of pulling all the various threads together in an understandable way. A lot of it is subtle but if you know the story you should appreciate the movie. Even the people you want to dislike, like CIA station head “Bob”,have moments of courage and leadership.
It us a true life story. Only people hating on it are trying to kill the messenger because they don't like the message
Got it. You want an action movie. This ain’t it. This is real life, not Hollywood.
I think “Benghazi” is finished as a political issue, if it ever was one to begin with.
Sorry but you obviously did not watch the same movie I did. Sorry if you were looking for a Stallone/Schwarzenegger style actioner. This is real life movie not Hollywood.
Did you like Zero Dark Thirty?
Not too many folks in the “mid-Atlantic” region going to see movies this past weekend.
A bit of military “realism” in war, eh? Like Zulu? Bataan? Alamo? Thermopylae? Pearl Harbor?
(Losing a battle can be - often is! - inspirational.)
No more like a documentary. Where the movie works is when you pull the various threads together.
For example
Where did the weapons the CIA was buying end up?
Why could they get an armed drone to hit the Jihadist stash of Sa-7s when they tracked him back to his nest but could not get anything at all over the Annex during the 13 hours of assaults?
Why do you repeatedly see scenes of the US Military spinning up to go in but NOTHING ever gets to the Annex until the team dispatched from Tripoli gets there?
Why is the drone over the Annex unarmed?
Why do you see early in the film a shot of the WH and the words “POTUS is being briefed” and yet NOTHING is done?
So sure, if you want a heroic Hollywood fiction, then this isn’t your movie. If you want to put visuals with the story and pull the threads together in an understandable, clear way, this is your movie.
Here is my assessment.
Our PC CIC and his Administration got these guys killed. I think they are so wedded to their political dogmas that they kept waiting for the locals to get their act together. They were so petrified of a “Black Hawk Down” type incident 60 days before 0 re-election that they did NOTHING. They kept hoping the locals would clean it up for them so they would not have to do anything.
It a story of the fundamental incompetency of the DC Political machine so wedded to Leftist political theories they are routinely paralyzed in the face of real world events.
I thought it was pretty well done......but because we got the crappiest seats (front row, center) we had to look skyward for 2 and a half hours at a somewhat blurry angle.
My wife asked me how I would have reacted differently had I been there.
#1, I would never have been as cool as the contractors, especially pre-battle. They had some great s**t going on.
#2, once attack started, I would have been up on the roof, not hunkered down in some safe room with the Agency Weenies. One can always find a rifle somewhere.
#3, If they didn’t know me, going up the ladder, I would have been yelling, “American trigger, good guy, headed up the ladder!” again and again.
#3, My macho, post-battle BS line.... “Most fun I’ve had since FSB St. Barbara!”
I haven't had the opportunity to see the movie yet, so I cannot say. (Plus, I don't know what you are 'aware' of).
From what I have read, it is mostly about the experience of those 'on the ground' and only references (blame) to the entire WH Administration in general are made. No specific 'names' are mentioned.
I suspect that had there been a 'naming of names', the movie would never have made it out of post production.
the author
I saw it twice at the theaters..
Might go see it a third
Very intense movie, even though you know the ending ahead of time. Well worth seeing.
My wife and I saw it, and she usually doesn't care for war movies. She thought this one was good.
About 35% of the public will refuse to see it because they are RATs who decline to hear any uncomfortable truths about their Regime.
Salon slogan: ‘We make the New York Times look conservative’
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