Oscar Winning Cast Can't Save the Silly Script

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2007)

Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Kingsly are Oscar winners. Samuel Jackson is an Oscar nominee,and Guy Pierce has many nominations and wins in his future. None of these actors, nor the excellent supporting cast can fix the confusion and unbelievability of this film.
In fact, the whole point of the film is easily lost because the filmmakers deliberately keep the audience ignorant of what the main character,Col. Terry Childers sees in the battle that sets the whole story in motion.
Meanwhile, a lot of plot development time is wasted on making sure the audience understands that the colonel, played by Samuel Jackson is tough and a good Marine, as is his buddy, Tommy Lee Jones. And, the continuity problems are so confusing that any viewer would lose the plot. (Begin spoiler)There is an important sequence which clearly shows kids in amongst a protesting crowd that is becoming more agitated. But later, there appear to be many score more wounded children than were ever established to be in the crowd in the first place AND with wounds that don't seem like they could have come from small arms fire.
Leave aside completely that the Colonel is charged with murder and photos of the scene show that pretty much everyone was killed...so again, you are left to wonder who are all these "surviving" wounded? (End spoiler) It would be worth the effort to just watch it for the acting, but it's pretty hard to get through. Basically, the whole thing suffers from trying to be plausible fiction, but failing in so many key areas that it falls dangerously near farce.