MovieChat Forums > Rules of Engagement (2000) Discussion > Propaganda of wrong.

Propaganda of wrong.

posted 17 years ago by BQQ
11 replies | jump to latest

The point of this film was to:

1. Make people against senseless slaughter of people look bad.
2. Make Arabs look bad.
3. Make sweet little crippled girls look bad.

The people below the embassy couldn't have hit the soldiers unless they had special volleying bullets, and the snipers didn't have a direct line of fire because of the parapet, and other obstructions on the roof. Look at this high quality drawing for reference: http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/5576/rulesengagementib4.gif. And popping out a few smoke grenades would have easily made their escape almost completely safe.

The entire film we are being played for fools. Until later in the film, we are being shown the crowd without a weapon in sight, and are expected to believe they pulled all those firearms out of their asses, and that they magically disappeared as the soldiers had a look at the mowed down crowd. We are being shown that it's okay to slaughter a large number of people in their own country, even when they're not a direct threat and it's a totally ludicrous decision that was 100% avoidable. We are being shown it's wrong to have sympathy for fallen Arabs because they're evil and deserved to die, and to doubt American soldier's actions, no matter what they caused. This film is a really bad influence.

P.S. You may wonder from the picture, well, why is the girl wearing crutches? This is a little theory I have... (Phoenix Wright moment) the girl was already crippled when they were shooting at the crowd!!! She accidentaly shot herself in the leg while she was shooting at some kittens with her favorite toy, a 9mm semi-automatic. Then evily paraded in front of the screen to make us all think the army was responsible. Errr, no, but it goes in spirit of the film, doesn't it?

[–] JollyRoger_919 17 years ago

Did you even see this movie? You sound like a far leftist peacenik who doesn't support our military. The crowd was firing at the marines but Samuel Jacksons charactor was the only surviving soldier who witnessed it. The video tape was the only evidence that proved it. The reason they didn't show the crowd firing at the soldiers during the scene was because it was part of the suspense. If they did show footage of the firing crowd during the rescue scene the movie would be more predictable and probably wouldn't have gotten a good review.

[–] toxictears 16 years ago

JollyRoger, I recommend a good documentary, "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood villifies a people." This film was a prime example of a propaganda film funded by the military. I feel sorry for the actors who went in it.

[–] LeeSir 13 years ago

And that's called *beep* if that was the case then they should show us them firsthand not like a limp twist. The same thing goes in real life, american military has a right to kill innocent.

[–] rivendel 17 years ago

BQQ, I agree...!

I saw this movie years ago, and it always bugged me. Not because of the plot holes, but because of the statement it makes at the end. I remember that as I saw the film, I kept thinking "wow, what a great script, great movie, complex arguments". And at the very ending... WTF????

During the whole movie I was led to believe that it was a film that questioned the excesses and atrocities committed at war in the name of "good". But the ending just negates the entire film, as if they were saying: "so, this is what happens when you question the military: no matter how right you think you are, in the end you are plain wrong". Conclusion: don't question them anymore. Surely they have their reasons to act like they do.

What bothered me is that they laid all the arguments against the excesses of the military, with all their complexity, and then, in the last 10 minutes, brushed them away by simply saying "ok, all that's nice, but see, in the end, all those women and children were EVIL, so it was ok to slaughter them".

The end of the film justifies the actions that the previous 3/4 of the film was trying to (apparently) condemn. A little too manipulative for my taste.

Cheers,
Vanina

[–] overninethousand 16 years ago

Thanks for an entertaining post.

[–] ereinion 16 years ago

Samuel Jackson confirmed to me what a prick he really is when he took this role. "Waste the mofos!"- oh how COOL and TOUGH that sounds! Well know what "mr.Coolness"?? Youre the only mofo I could see there! All the integrity and class he might have built with movies like Pulp Fiction, Jungle Fever, Jackie Brown etc. went straight outa the window when he accepted to star in such a bigotted and racist hatefest of a movie! And he who always talks about how hard it was to be subjected to racism in his youth...shows that people only care about themselves. People like him anyway.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe *beep* yourself.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] toxictears 16 years ago

Yeah, but you can choose to exercise some integrity and discrimination in what roles you choose, and what kind of message you are portraying. I would feel dirty going in a propaganda film like this.

[–] overninethousand 16 years ago

I love your drawing.

[–] zap644 16 years ago

Are you sure you saw the same movie I did?

If the point of the film was to do the 3 things you said, it utterly failed.

What were you thinking before Childers gave the order to shoot at the crowd?

I was thinking, 'WTF, fire back at the people killing your men.'

On your point 1:
Rather than what you claim, I say it makes violence as a means of protest look bad. Not only were they violently attacking a foreign country's sovereign soil (that's what embassies are), they brought their children with them.
It's like bringing your 5 year old daughter to a bullfight and paying extra to get seats inside the ring so you can have a better view of the action - and then you claim it was unfair that the mean old bull gored her.

While we didn't see anything but Molotov cocktails, rock-throwing and a mob beating an embassy guard from the crowd at first, the video-tape clearly showed guns being fired from the crowd.

It was a senseless slaughter, but it was the fault of the people who brought kids to a violent riot and who were seeking the senseless slaughter of innocent embassy workers, including the ambassador's young son.

On point 2: This was a small crowd in Yemen. How is that representative of the entire Arab world? Anyone shallow enough to draw that conclusion didn't need this movie to think Arabs are bad. There are plenty of real-life examples of a handful of Arabs doing bad things that actually do reflect poorly on Arabs, just as when the US does bad things, it reflects badly on us.

That does NOT make all Arabs or all Americans bad.

On Point 3: WTF? The "sweet little crippled girl" depicted in the movie was a sympathetic victim who did nothing wrong other than apparently being born to parents who would think a violent attack on an American embassy would be a good way for their young daughter to spend an afternoon.

Oooh, but she called Hodges a killer - she is teh evil, right? WRONG! The scenes with her and those in the hospital depicted the suffering of those who were innocent. If you were a child in a hospital like that, wouldn't you call Hodges a killer too?

How you make the leap that she was supposed to be evil is beyond comprehension.

BTW, I take it your little picture is not to scale. You can make the case that Childers should have ordered his men to attack the snipers "across the way", but if that is the case, it reflects badly on Childers, NOT the peaceful crowd.

And just for the record, would you say the crowd in front of the embassy was "peaceful"?

[–] mylo_dude 14 years ago

Welcome to the movies.