Jingoistic Propaganda

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2015)

This film made me realise the value of life and that's why i want the two hours i spent watching it back.
The portrayal of the Iraq war is skewed, all background of how Al Qaeda first built strongholds in Iraq due to the power vacuum caused by the removal of Saddam Hussein is entirely overlooked as are the coalitions reasons for entering Iraq. Director Clint Eastwood uses glaring omissions to portray the idea that Al Qaeda insurgents linked with the 911 attacks were present in Iraq prior to the US's entry into the country, when in actual fact they only enters Iraq later and were at the time mostly based in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.
Politics aside the film was deeply flawed, the main character struck me as a small minded unlikeable bigot, which then in turn made me care very little about what happened to him. The whole situation was painted in black & white good versus bad rather than the shades of grey that are necessary for war pieces. Furthermore all of the patting on the back, boasting and lauding of a man based upon his supreme ability to kill other human beings, seemingly remorselessly sickened me throughout. Other problems were areas of predictable cliché poor pacing and repetitiveness. I usually enjoy bad films as they make me laugh, this one actually made me angry. To me it watched like a piece of trashy propaganda that felt like it had been commissioned by the fox network. I have never written a review or rated a film before but created an IMDb account just because i hated this film so unbelievably much. I would rather watch Pearl Harbour on repeat for a year than watch this again.