Propaganda, 2013 Style

Rating: 3/10 (24 October 2014)

Good God, this was a terrible movie, and I can't quite understand how people like Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg let themselves get caught up in such a piece of propagandistic hogwash. Marcus Luttrelle is hardly an uncomplicated figure—his numerous right-wing comments in interviews since his book came out, for instance, make clear the extent to which he's the typical brainwashed 'Murrican soldier—and there's absolutely nothing here to raise this film above the thoughtless, hoo-rah level of a period John Wayne flick (with much more fake blood). Numerous slow periods are punctuated by gruesome violence. Is this supposed to teach us something? Like "war is hell" or some other profound thought? Only a person with a heart of stone could fail to burst into laughter at the scene in which Marcus—near death and barely able to walk—stops to embrace a small Afghani child before climbing onto the helicopter that is going to carry him to safety (where he immediately codes and has to be shocked back to life). That level of flagrant, unsubtle pandering is exactly what makes this film a waste of everyone's time. This is a film for people who have drunk the Kool-Aid; if you retain the capacity for critical thought, you'll find it a bloody bore.