Breath-taking and moving account

Rating: Null/10 (21 July 2003)

I have seen this movie three times in a row, the second time with Ridley Scotts commentary and the third with the combatants commentary. After listening to the two commentaries the movie creates quite different feelings and thoughts. Initially I thought it was quite a good war movie, bullets explosions, deaths, and shows a badly planned and executed effort. Listening to McKnight, Eversmann et al you suddenly and emotionally realise these are real men getting killed when they make comments like 'that was when Casey Joyce was killed...' and the emotion these men still felt when watching Gordon and Shughart give their lives to protect others. Their comments made me realise the mission was a success, it was planned and executed well, and was a credit to the forces training. I would say that this is one of the best movies in recent memory because it has taken a real incident and portrayed it accurately and compassionately yet still come out as an entertaining two hours.