Too much empty, not enough full

Rating: 4/10 (18 April 2006)

A war film should be about the fighting. Why make it otherwise? Make something else. This one was all about the sidebars of war, not war action thus it left me wanting much more of the war action part and not what this film was about, which looked like all the director's outtakes put together. I could not get used to seeing our soldiers well prepared for battle and then not fighting the war they were trained to fight, instead fighting their own personal demons and new-age introspective "issues". How PC and touchy-feely the war "situation" was in this film...no fighting, just personal "issues"!
The soldiers' personal life "issues", and their waiting around, bickering, waiting around, intimidating, waiting around, digging foxholes in the sand, waiting around, heat and dust suffering, waiting around, walking around, etc. and other mostly boring in-between-the-actual-fighting filler material should lead to a great action payoff in any good war story, but this film did not pay off at all as it lead nowhere and ended nowhere near a good war action story(I was in the Army so I know a lot of being a soldier is waiting around, standing around, sitting around, marching around....all the time waiting for the big payoff to make up for the other very boring crap that the filmmaker thought was so important to show us for 2 effing hours.....but not to me!).
So, in the future, if I ever get the urge to see another "war" film about all the "issues" stuff that goes on while the soldiers are not actually fighting, I'll beat myself over the head until the urge goes away and save myself 2 wasted hours. Or, see a great war movie like Saving Private Ryan for the 10th time!