Call of Duty with a bit of bromance

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2016)

Very slightly more sophisticated than John Wayne's Green Berets, this is a gung-ho action packed patriotic thriller "based on real events". Like COD, it's pretty accurate in it's depiction of weapon usage and clearly shows that through succeeding in its aim to "leave no man behind", we may be loosing the battle but winning the war. We know at the end, that this particular episode wasn't a great victory for the USA. But hey ho, every US soldier who died is a brave hero listed by name at the end of the film, the hundreds of Somali's were just cannon fodder and clearly every single one was a savage committed to the cause. Were all the Somalis on the same side? Who cares. Where did their weapons come from? Who cares. The one thing I do remember from media coverage of the actual conflict was footage of some of the bodies of American soldiers captured during the battle being dragged through the streets. Clearly this would have distracted from this "accurate" portrayal which rather than being heralded as a graphic representation of real events, should be more widely recognised as a recruiting flag-waver. If it didn't pretend to be something its not, then as an action thriller, it is well crafted and I would have given it higher marks. But people have been led to believe it is more than that, and that is really unforgivable.