A narrow view of a large calamity

Rating: 4/10 (11 November 2005)

While my wife and I found the film interesting and worth the time and expense to view it, we also found it to be lacking in an important way.
Whether this was the intent or not, this film will be viewed by many as an insight into what the war in the Persian Gulf was. By focusing exclusively on the impact of the war on the lives of American soldiers, we are again presented with an incomplete view of a real event. A view that reiterates the hopefully false impression that the importance of any event is the impact that it has on the United States or its citizens.
One of the major impacts of the war in Iraq is the calamity that it has brought to the Iraqui population (whether or not it was for their own good is not the point). This essential dimension is totally absent from the film. In fact, I recollect less than 10 Arabs portrayed in that film (unless you count the corpses). If the impact of the war on the general population was not an important consideration in the soldiers' reaction to their war experience, this in itself is a highly revealing fact that needs to be presented.
In order to understand my concern about this film, imagine that someone made a film about the bombing of Germany and focused nearly exclusively on the experiences of the bomber pilots without covering in any way the impact of this bombing on the general population. Such a film would quite rightly be considered deeply flawed, no matter your opinion on the culpability of the German populace with respect to Nazi crimes. If the pilots had not been concerned about the negative side effects of their actions (they were), that is an important dimension that would have needed to be presented.