Steve’s Mid Week Movie Spot

Due to work, illness and an abnormal number of birthdays I’ve not managed to see that many films lately. Quarantine and Scar 3D passed my way and they have been reviewed also so I won’t dwell on these here. But I also managed to catch Tears of the Sun, a movie made way back in 2003 with Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci and Cole Hauser. The basic story line is that Lt A Waters and his team of Navy Seals need to get into war-torn Nigeria and extract Doctor Lena Kendricks, of course they run into difficulties. I thought it a good movie and I think it is definitely worth a purchase on DVD as it is fairly cheap.

Is it a realistic depiction of Military weapons and tactics or is it a Hollywood version that has real military men shaking their heads?

But it brings me onto what I wanted to talk about this week and that is depictions of the military in films. Tears of the Sun featured Navy Seals and I felt that all the actors gelled together and came across as a convincing seal unit in terms of look, language, actions and tactics. But of course I know nothing about Navy Seals so really it is down to my perception of whether it is convincing or not based on the very little that I do know. However if I was watching it with a Navy Seal for example they may have just been yelling, “But you don’t do that” or “That would never happen”. However in the extras it is revealed that the military advisor (which all these films seem to use) is an Ex Navy Seal so I assume that the tactics are authentic. But you can never help think that it is all glammed up for Hollywood. But then I guess even there it depends on the Director, for example I think Full Metal Jacket is one of the best Vietnam films I’ve ever seen, followed closely by Platoon. Again i’ve no idea if the uniforms, look & feel. tactics etc are authentic but the director has done a good job of making ME think that it looks extremely convincing and I suppose that is really all that matters.

As an end note to Tears of the Sun, whilst some of the tactics etc may well be authentic it would seem that at least some of the military procedures and protocols are not judging by some of the goofs listed.

So what do you think about military depictions in films? Do you have any memorable movies or ones that you think are done very badly?