Don't believe the hype...

Rating: 5/10 (9 September 2009)

I'm afraid I am at a loss to explain why this film has so many positive reviews, I know at least five people who have seen this and we all feel the same.
American Cheese.
The first twenty minutes are quite absorbing but then we descend into farce.
On assisting some Brits in the desert with a flat tyre the group take incoming fire, fatalities in sew and it falls to the bomb disposal team (the film's main characters) to save the situation by firing a high velocity sniper rifle at long range, killing the enemy, one of whom is seen running away.
I am no expert but I know that this scenario is impossible, on viewing I am filled with incredulity and I hear sighs in the auditorium. In an instant the film becomes a Bruckheimer special, a place where it should never have gone.
"Its only a film", I hear you say, but here in lies the problem.
If this film is to have a message of realism, the ravage of war and its affect on the people that serve, and that is exactly what it sets out to do, then you cant have periods of such nonsense.
The result is a hollow story, character floors of huge proportion - scenes of the guys drinking heavily or feeling disconnected when they return home become cliché, inept, shallow and immature.
As for some comments, "the best war film for the last 25 years, quite quite wrong I'm afraid.
N