I watched this movie again and re-examined some things and messages the movie is conveying. This movie is pure Hollywood propaganda which is Anti-Russian, Anti-Serbian, and anti-European all together.
I feel sorry for Americans being brainwashed everyday by the media.. a media that is not in their control.
I agree. I think it's perfect vehicle to explain to the rest of the world what the first President Bush meant when he made the puffed-up proclaimation: "The New World Order."
I think the movie is purely from the American point-of-view while it makes a weak attempt to sketch out the issues in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo for the US audience.
It argues for the "cowboy" approach in international relations. This particular Hollywood senario, while exciting to watch for the US viewers, has very little educational value since this sort of thing doesn't happen in the real world. Even the current President knows that.
OK.... Ill take into account your view... if you explain to me the view that was wrong.... that the serbs and croats did not engage in ethnic cleansing sniper type wars? That muslim extremists want to bring the war to the US shores, even if it means a nuclear bomb? That Russian troops are not above the killing of their own and the selling of a nuclear bomb? That the US military is almost soley waging the war against terror? Explain those simple things and how they did not ever happen or could not ever happen and I will say they should not be put into a movie.
Its not supposed to be educational, its a friggin movie, not a documentary....
I'm going to go and get some popcorn, you want anything?
Yes, Russian troops are above the killing of their own in order to sell a nuclear bomb, smarty pants. No amount of money would ever make a soldier, who once wanted to serve and loved his country, blow a NUCLEAR bomb on its territory. Did you notice how of all the things you listed, this was the only that hasn't come even remotely closed to ever happening? This movie shows that stealing a bomb is as easy as breaking into an armored car. It makes the Russians look like complete idiots - every single soldier on the train was sleeping? a road block of 5 people so close to the accident and on the border? no troops in an area so close to the border? Please..
Sheesh, some people watch too many movies.
hoeforabuck: Your point well-taken. Don't get me wrong...I enjoyed the movie a lot. Great action picture. I'm American...great to see our guys win.
My observation was how foreigners see this picture. A large part of the rest of the world who watches it are insulted on different levels. Previous posts from Croatians and others from the region show real hatred for the movie and it's weak attempt to gloss over the disputes in that part of the world.
Are they wrong? Is it a matter of viewpoint?
And the Russian part...don't know if that's realistic or not. It's crucial to the plot that their soldiers are lax at all levels...but is it true-to-life?
Also...the war on terror is being waged by our armed forces in different parts of the globe...but co-operation between world police and intellegence services have driven Al Qaida "to ground." We are not alone, by a long shot.
Your other point is well taken: the nuke attack (or something like it) in NYC could happen. The US govt is convinced of it and has spent a great deal of effort to prevent it.
I'm hoping that if a nuke was sold to terrorists that our forces would swing into action like this portrayal. Somehow, I don't think it works like the movie in real life.
Regards. CmdrCody
hahaha,.waging the war on terrorims solely,...my dear ignorant friend,.the Serbs have been fighting a war on terrorims for 15 years now,.defending their most sacred places in Kosovo against de Muslim agressors,.
The russians have been fighting terrorism in Chechnya for 10 years ,.dont make such statment if not fully informed.
your pathethic hypocratic county has the right to go to other countries and bomb their people because two pathethic litte buildings that are 30 years old are destroyed. And Serbs cannot defend their 1000 year old churches from plunder en destruction, and defend their people from brutal attack and rape ?...please spare me your hypocracy and go die somewhere :)
'In America, First You Get The Money, Then You Get The Power, And Then You Get The Women'
Let me say at the onset that I am Albanian. It is obvious that you are most likely serb or of slavic decent. Do you call the rape, torture and the foiled attempt at ethnic cleansing on the part of the serbs "protection against Muslim aggression"? Do you call forcing the ENTIRE ALBANIAN Population (Almost 1 MILLION PEOPLE) out of their homes and their Homeland by means of rape, torture and massacre protection against so-called "Muslim Aggression"?
If you believe in that, well, I believe there is a special place for you in Hell.
Nobody, under any circumstances, has the right to ethnically cleanse innocent, I repeat INNOCENT (99.9999999% of Kosovar Albanians) when the Albanians are the persecuted ones who had their land taken from them and now they want equality in a country like serbia, so racist and discriminatory and so willing to create a Holocaust because of the very same blind Nationalism/Patriotism you supposedly curse.
It is widely accepted THE WORLD OVER that Albanians are the DIRECT decedents of the Illyrians who settled that region of the world long before a Slav ever set their foot it what was, before WW1, Albania Proper. As for 1000 year old churches go....try 2000 years of history Albanians have on that very same land your supposedly "1000 year-old church" was built on.
And another question...why was Rugova allowed to administer Kovsova and live there peacefully while milosovic was rotting in the Hague? Probably because of the "stupid, ignorant and hypocritical West"! LOL :)
[deleted]
you're both stupid. why do you bring up illyrians every time? don sarov, the slavs weren't christian. the albanians/central asian tribes WTF? just shut up. it's disgusting, racist people like you that give the serbs a bad name.
you and the edmond guy are related if you go far enough back. as for the whole illyrians/slavs thing, the serbs are genetically closer to the germans, danes, and the english than they are to the russians so you can't really use such stupid arguements as "this is our land because we speak the same language as the people that settled down here 1000 years ago" if you were to do such things, we'd all have to move to africa
Those of you who consider this film the typical Holywood, fun to watch, "America is the Best" nonsense I believe should reconsider. Just one phrase from the movie for you that proves you wrong: "I am a Muslim, I am a Croat, I am a Serb" (aka I could even be American!).
Anyway, I am Greek, so I guess in modern times this makes me as well a "Balkan".
Funny thing Albanians appear in our history books only in the 20th century. Before that its like they are nonexistand. Illyrians are referred in our history books during Byzantine years but with nothing specific about them. I guess history is the mix of facts and who is writing the facts...
There are Greek soldiers at the disputed area (under "KFOR" i think). Millochevich (sorry for the spelling) trully did awefull things to Albanians, but UCK (the Albanian rebel army) did afterwards worse.
Fact is that at present time, at the disputed area, Albanians live at their homes while Serbs don't, so at present time, Serbs are the unfavored ones.
The reason is the Albanian agressiveness which is beyond any belief. They are absolutly uncontrolled.
For instance, with Serbs absent, they keep burning churches and everything Serbian in the territory. KFOR desited to have soldiers guard the remaining churches.
Well...that is no problem for the Albanians. There is one case where the mob attacked the church using molotof bobs and handgrenades. Even soldiers firing on the air didn't scare them. One soldier was injured. American commandos where called... [B]not to save the church but to save the soldiers[B]
If it was Iraq then the soldiers would have fired directly to the mob (among which which were armed men) from their armored trucks preventing them from getting close to them or the church.
Milochevich is past, Albanian aggressiveness is present._
Why do all Europeans think that all Americans believe everything the media or Hollywood produces? If you knew any Americans, you'd find a lot of us can't stand the garbage that comes out of Hollywood. Yes, it's just a movie. A stupid movie- and many of us know that. Let's get one thing straight- Not ALL Americans share Hollywood's beliefs, especially this American. Don't look at the movies this country produces and think we are all brainwashed to think that way. Only the rich make these idiotic movies, and how out of touch with reality are the rich?...
Congratulations on the Earth... Bill and I enjoy it on a daily basis.
I know I'm responding to an almost 10 year old post but your hypocrisy demands it.
You start your message with "Why do all Europeans think" and then continue to complain how not all Americans believe everything the media/Hollywood produces.
ok let's see here. Who runs the #1 drug smuggling, prostitution, and crime rings in all of Europe?
Answer: Albanians.
"Nobody, under any circumstances, has the right to ethnically cleanse innocent, I repeat INNOCENT (99.9999999% of Kosovar Albanians) when the Albanians are the persecuted ones who had their land taken from them and now they want equality in a country like serbia, so racist and discriminatory and so willing to create a Holocaust because of the very same blind Nationalism/Patriotism you supposedly curse. "
Take a look at Kosovo population right now and see why Serbian land is 99 percent Albanian and 1 Percent Serbian. Wow, I mean thats a lot of Serbian ethnic cleansing toward those "poor" Albanians, right? It is Albanians and the Terrorist UCK/KLA that was doing the genocide... Serbia (Milosevic) sent in forces to protect it's territory and citizens. I wouldnt call that ethnic cleansing. The bottom line is that now Kosovo is pure Albanian and the remaining 1 percent Serb population is terrorized. This is pure genocide but for America it is OK for White people to be ethnically cleansed but non-whites are precious gems to them.
"It is widely accepted THE WORLD OVER that Albanians are the DIRECT decedents of the Illyrians who settled that region of the world long before a Slav ever set their foot it what was"
Bunch of bs. The ancient Illyrians were racially nordic white people and got mixed after centuries of different invasions and migrations. A typical muslim Albanian today is 50 percent Turk. You have nothing of ancient Illyrian blood and you have no claim to Serbian/Macedonian land.
[deleted]
"""Lest not forget that you Serbs are persians in origin, IRANIANS!"""
LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL
[deleted]
I just wanted to say that I was recently in Long Beach and the taxi driver who was foreign ( I won't say from where ) decided to go on a rant to me ( I'm Canadian ) about the States.
He was talking about how it's no wonder that a lot of ppl from other Countries are so pissed at the States because the States and Britain go into other countries, suck them dry of thier resources or use them somehow/do something that affects them negatively (resulting in the death of MANY civilians).
I'm not sure what to believe anymore about governments, politics etc. because this is the second time I'm hearing this sort of thing. My hairdress from the middle east says that the ppl there don't want the US there at all because it just ends up hurting the civilians.
IMO it's the governemnts who are too greedy. Seriously heads of States, Prime Ministers, Presidents etc. should just get into a ring and fight each other out one on one when they have a problem lol. It sucks that everyday civilians are the ones who risk thier life.
We as a people are not perfect, we make mistakes.
You should consider that 2800 people lost their lives when those
"two pathetic buildings came down"!!!!!!!
If you were referring to 9/11 with that statement, SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY IS US"
POGO
Bwahahaha, outstanding response to these Eurowhiners.
shareSerbs are Persians? Can you get any more ridiculous than that?! You must be American, according to your lack of intelligence and information.
Oh, and about the Albanian thing in Kosovo: did you know that Albanians use Serbs as a daily hunting prey? Serbian kids grew up in something similar to a concentration camp never being outside, because once they set their foot out there, they will be pumped with lead by the Albanians. A friend of mine (she's Serbian) got kicked out of her own home in Kosovo by the Albanians. Now who's doing the ethnic cleansing there?
Once Albanians attacked a Serb villager, knocked him out, and shoved a broken glass bottle up his ass. Oh, how civilized the Albanians are!
[deleted]
And where did you find prove about Persian origin????
Man, go to school and start history lessons...
PEASANTS!!!
shareIA with the original poster. Except the anti-Sirbian comments. They are true.
****
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Geez, we can't make a movie with muslim bad guys, we can't make a movie with serb bad guys, we can't make a movie with russian bad guys, we can't make a WWII movie with Japanese bad guys, we can't even make a european WWII movie because the limeys get pissed everytime we do since the whole movie doesn't revolve around them.
You people do realize that we're not saying all the people in that group are evil. Just a certain segmant or group of them.
So Euros, just who the hell is acceptable to have as the badguy (or excuse me, i'll use the political correct term 'antagonist') in our war/spy movies?
Then why don't you make a movie where Americans are the bad guys?
share[deleted]
[deleted]
Mate terror is not tangible, one cannot go to war against terror. Would you declare war on stupidity?
shareIn the 1990's I had a co-worker who spoke fluent Russian, like a native. He made 2 or 3 trip a year to Russia and always returned to California with incredible Russian military goods.Uniforms, equipment, papers and documents- he even brought back 4 Russian Navy longboats, each capable of holding 20-25 people. He mentioned once that he was frequently offered Makarov pistols, AKs and other weapons, which he refused. When I asked him why all the stuff he brought back was available for sale he said, "The Russian navy hasn't been paid in two years. If I had enough money and a crew I could buy a submarine." I doubt things were much better in the Russian Army, and yes, I can believe a corrupt Russian general would and could steal/sell nuclear weapons.
"She was a long, tall, authentic blonde. I loved her as much as I loved my .45..."
it's a terrible movie. nobody will remember what it was about. so it was a bad progaganda anyway.
I've got a few Croat friends that think this is an OK film. They didn't complain about any anti-Serb angle. Why would that be?
shareAnti-Serb? Do Americans spend a significant amount of time thinking about Serbia?
shareThis movie maybe isn't so great, but it shows in true manner who was the villain in wars that took place in Croatia and Bosnia. Serbs were the villains-aggressors and that is a fact that none Serb with his bull$ stories can change. Deal with it.
shareHollywood films that involve Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia or anything to do with the former Yugoslav states and the Yugoslav wars are always way off target and misleading because Hollywood KNOWS FK ALL about Serbia, Serbs, or any of the other former Yugoslavian states and people.
Americans never really understood wtf was going on over there during the early 1990's and they still don't. All they remember is the words "ethnic cleansing", that's why you seem them bring them up every 2 minutes on threads like this.
Stop trying to sound educated with your views because all your doing is further misleading most of these already mislead idiots here and feeding them half truths about Serbs, the Yugoslav wars,etc...
And before you flame me, just know that I am from Bosnia (a Bosniak not a Serb or Croat), I lived there during the war; I agree full-well that Serbs were the initial aggressors during the Bosnian War, they essentially started it, they started the notion of ethnic cleansing and I definitely believe Milosevic was a war criminal; but I don't agree that they have to be portrayed as evil terrorists in movies. I have Serb friends, I know not every Serb was involved in burning villages and massacring civilians.
It's unfair just to portray people from that region in a negative light just because of what happened 17 years ago. Its like portraying all Americans in films as slave owners just because American people owned slaves hundreds of years ago.
It's a stupid notion that Hollywood loves to perpetuate because they know nothing about the Yugoslav Wars or the Yugoslavian people.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Just saw the movie. Can I just say that the Serbian guy wasn't portrayed as nearly as evil as you guys are making him out to be...?
The character wasn't made as a fanatic without a cause, nor was he meant to represent Serbian people in general. He was just one man driven to desperation by the death of his wife and child, and further enraged by the indifference of the UN people on the scene, and the fact that the West had been involved with the snipers before they became interested in "peacemaking." (I don't know if this is true or not, but even if it's not he could still have believed it because of propaganda, or misinformation, or simply the need to pin the blame on someone...)
The guy was a human man, as he put it, with very human motivations - reminded me of General Hummel in The Rock. In both cases you can empathize with the bad guy and still see him as a bad guy, which is something I loved about them both. Would that more movies were like this.
"I ought to tell you something."
"Don't get sentimental now, Dad! Save it for when we get out of here."
"The floor's on fire."
I agree, Hollywood movies and Balkan is usually a very bad combination.
For those who want to see a more intelligent movie about this, I would recommend the Macedonian movie "Before the Rain". No Russian planes shot down in this movie, only a few people being shot and perhaps some lambs being born, but it deals with these issues in a much better way, without become preachy...
Living in Western Europe, I am often ashamed about the way media portray Serbs....
[deleted]
[deleted]
I see it a bit different. I wouldn't call gavrich a terrorist. I saw a man, broken because his wife and kid were shot before his eyes, at the same time when UN military cars passed without doing anything. This brings me to the useless organisation called UN.(definitely their military wing)
shareIn the scene with the USAF helicopters violating Russian Airspace, when the Russian officer says " Take them out" , what is he really saying in Russian?
share[deleted]
Why would you assume that the inequity in portrayal offends only the Serbs. I'm not a Serb, Croat, Bosniak, or an Albanian but I too am offended by the simplistic assignment of guilt whenever a discussion arises with regard to the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990-2000s.
Let me try and explain it to you. No one was innocent and the temporary relationships forged during those periods were more of convenience. Croats committed their fair share of atrocities against Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. They would temporarily side with Muslims against Serbs (who were better armed and trained) when the need would arise. Muslims committed some of the most heinous acts of the war on their own people to garner sympathy from the west. Albanians in Kosovo were responsible for perhaps the greatest systematic atrocities of the war against innocent Serbs civilians during the later part of the 90s and masked it under the pretense of a fight for human rights. Their actions after the "war" in Macedonian illustrate this. After being accepted as temporary refugees in Macedonia they quickly tried to pull (and were successful thanks to US assistance) the same thing there (again under the banner of a human rights struggle).
Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie explained it best to US congress when asked who was responsible for the atrocities in Yugoslavia. His response was "I don't understand the question". He was then asked "who the bad guys were?". He responded with something to the effect of "You have three serial killers. One has killed 50 people. One has killed 25 and the other only 10. And the only reason that the one that has killed 10 hasn't killed 75 is because they lack the means". Congress then asked "who fired the first shot?". The general replied with "some son of a bitch 200 years ago".
I have no love for the Serbs (as an ethnic Macedonian and from personal experiences) but having lived in Yugoslavia during that period I can tell you that once you get past all of the propaganda and bull generated by the global media they were the most innocent (if you can say that) out of the three.
Just my qualified opinion.
I found out they are all quite the same more or less:
Dusan
Silva(Skyfall)
Joker(The Dark Knight)
These villains all caused by unsolved trauma which shares or easily touches with an aboundance of audiences to some extent, and it always is emotional and reasonable. Hence the most difficult thing, always, when pulling triggers at these people, due to parts of the evil mutated from humanity.
But when there's a need to do it right away... hope their bodies are as smart as their tongues. Guilty it may seem, at least with a understanding I'm not killing like psychopaths.
When you're about to be stabbed, you wouldn't care if he/she is just or not. And with careful and rational inspections you'll know they are not that innocent as they belive in themselves.
I suspect that any "anti country X" appearance in this movie is only a side-effect of American action movies in general. I'm finding it difficult to think of any American action movies in which the US enters country X without permission, that don't have the same anti country X appearance. In other words, the US looks down on all other countries the same way all other countries do. We just make more big budget action movies.
share