Intriguing, unsatisfying, disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (25 April 2016)

OK. I'm European/ME background so not the greatest fan of the US military esp. not Hollywood depictions of it. I don't want Islam in Europe (they tried twice before, not a 3rd time thank you), but nor do I want the West intruding there. Libya, Syria, and Iraq we should not be there. So I don't like the Libyan bit. Yes it happened for real as a Western intervention, no I still don't like it. It was ineffective and unsuccessful. I hated the invasion of Iraq 2003. Why am I saying all this? Because for all the 'US military is the Best in the World' as this movie tries so hard to portray (best, meanest, roughest, toughest etc.) it hasn't won a single war since against Japan 1945. GW1 was a 100hr 'turkey shoot' hi-tech war against peasants. The US military is not the best in the world, just the most expensive, and the smallest by population resource base (about less than 1% of the population). I thought Blackhawk Down was a more realistic portrayal of the US SF in an Islamic environment.
Now to Demi More. I thought she performed a thankless role well. Didn't do her career much good though Personally I do not approve of or agree with women in combat roles. Not one bit. Any other part of the military-welcome, but not combat. Esp. not in the ME where it seems at least 60% of the US effort has been for the last 15 years. There is presently a huge controversy in the US about opening up the SF to women. They the SF operatives apparently do not want it. Only the politicos (very well portrayed in the movie) want it for stupid non-military or operational reasons. If a woman in uniform is captured in the ME by Jihadis, she will endure a nightmare that will scar, damage and ruin her for life.
Out there attitudes to khuffar (Infidel/non-Muslim) women in uniform are many times worse even than for Muslim women who rebel against the religion. What DM went through with Master Chief would be 'a walk in the park' compared to what she would undergo in reality at Jihadi hands. So that argument about women in combat is mostly unrealistic. And the film portrayal, while maybe realistic about the training, is unrealistic about what an enemy would do to a Woman in uniform... Not merely 'a bit of roughness' but utter screaming barbarity...
The point of GI Jane was to portray women going into SF training then into combat. It failed to show the outcome of that reality in the fully conflictual (Iraqi/Syria) ME. Possibly it only wanted to portray her readiness to operate in a unit while not showing 'cultural context'. This was cheating IMHO. Imagine GI Jane in Blackhawk down. That would much more realistic. Imagine her as a chopper pilot, like the guy who got dragged off. This movie failed to portray the argument of women in SF except in the most 'entertaining' light. So it was entertaining, for that I gave it 5. But for lack of realism in its representational purpose I wouldn't give it more. A 'Blackhawk Down' scenario with a female operative would have been much more realistic