I watched this flick last night (Cinema De La Chris Hemsworth) and as expected it was a ‘based on a true story’ revisionist depiction of ‘men on a mission’ movie. The kind of thoughtful piece of Foreign Policy Americana that the US finely makes. As it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer i wasn’t at all surprised that there was a large amount of humanitarian testosterone.

Let’s break a same run-off-the-mill cliches down:
– Soldiers see a devestating event (9/11) and immediately sign up.
– Solidarity and camaraderie among the team.
– Unlimited ammunition when in the face of battle.
– Is the Afghan a good/bad guy a bad/bad guy or a bad/good guy?
– Brothers in arms when sh*t gets hot on the battlefield.
– Rise of the warrior within when the situation turns bad.
– Win.. well, a few GIs got hurt on top of the thousand Afghan casualties!
– Homecoming and the happy wives…

I am blurred as to where hard fact is mixed with helpful fiction to greatly amp up the action. They even trotted out that emotional nugget of Americans shooting lots of the enemy but one bullet strikes them it’s a huge impact. Very recruitment heavy John Wayne.

My main problem with this is that it makes you feel that the whole thing was a success (which this particular mission was) but overall the whole issue of Afghanistan was a total failure. This is spin of the highest order to put triumph within a catastrophic campaign but nowhere in the same league as U571 which literally rewrote history and wrote out British involvment in the capture of the Enigma Machine.

British cinema isn’t any better with the very weird Churchill movie starring Gary Oldman. That piece if revisionist sh*t painted a fat drunk as if he was Rumpole of the Bailey and a cuddly fighter, nice, curmudgeonly old man. Bagpus won World War 2.

What worries me that reality is reinvented/ distorted with films like this that have a longer lasting impact. What’s next? i literally can’t wait!

As Kellyanne Conway said… Alternative facts.