Review of Lions for Lambs (2007) by Omac1985 . — 29 Dec 2008

I really liked this movie accept for several details which my past vocation as a Marine tend to bring up, and I only wish to highlight these after mentioning that I feel the film did a wonderful job of showing the very difficult relationship between legislators and the media. My criticism of this movie, however, comes from several military-oriented points.

1. The idea that Robert Redford's character was drafted. Seeing as he is a prominent professor at a major UC college, I cannot for the life of me imagine that he, as self-admitted former Fraternity guy, would have found himself drafted into the military. The amount of schooling necessary would have certainly kept him out of most conflicts.

2. The 2 Army Rangers caught behind enemy lines. Where, oh where, do I begin? First off, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't go out on a mission that is inherently dangerous, where your own commanding officer tells you to 'dress warm', and not think to bring a rucksack and a buttload of ammo, seeing as your job is 'pentagonese for bait'. Any SF guys going out there would be concerned with having tons of ammo on them. Seeing as they were supposed to be '2 minutes out' from their objective, it is likely that most of the soldiers, the leaders included, would have had their packs on, even if they were just strapped on their chests.

2. The fall from the Helo. All I'm going to say about that is, while it's moving to think that a guy would hop out of a helo to follow his friend, it would have been way better if he'd considered to grab some more ammo, or their packs, before running off the ramp.

3. Standing up just to get shot by the Taliban. I'm sorry, but there's no fucking way I'd stand my buddy up just to let him get killed with me. I'd stay low, let those little bastards come in close, and my final act would be stabbing them. Interestingly enough, it would have probably taken enough time for this to happen and allow the rescue helo to arrive, which of course is just too late as usual per hollywoodland warfare. Furthermore, there's not way any self-respecting Taliban would not take the time to desecrate their corpses and strip them of all of their gear.

Overall, however, I consider this movie worth seeing not because of the military side, which apart from the uniform items carried (Oh, and BTW, I'm pretty sure any SF troops would have better optics, those Lieutenants didn't even have infrared PQ-4's on their M-4 carbines) was highly innacurate in many ways (which commander sends their people out without a Quick Reaction Force on standby for immediate use?). I do, however, believe the discourse between legislators and their necessary but dangerous relationship with the media, as well as professors and recalcitrant students.