A sensationalist, infantile crock of sh*t that should be overlooked

I rarely feel compelled to comment on IMDb anymore but the way this documentary insults your intelligence (particularly as an avid historian of modern wars) and trivializes the very sombre issue of the Afghanistan conflict with this dumbed-down, politically-correct slant really pissed me off.

This is not the highly-respected Restrepo or it's sequel Korengal or the equally-competent Danish production Armadillo.
Those documentaries are what you should be watching if you're after authentic war footage from the perspective of the boots on the ground.

This 97-minute, war-porn extravaganza was a few special effects away from being a Call of Duty cinematic, hastily-filmed and put together with very little exposition in a manner which makes it feel like someone's pay-check documentary or a lame duck, propaganda hit-piece.

This is a washed-up and severely unprepared war correspondent whose glory days are well behind him trying to take the shine away from real war documentaries and re-establish a name for himself with what he thinks the American, reality TV junkie demographic wants to see after being force-fed romanticized war propaganda for a good decade.

Heavy use of slow-motion and dramatic cuts in combat footage interspersed with fake gunfire/explosion/ricochet sound effects, overlayed with ridiculously bombastic music straight from the Michael Bay school of blockbusters and even theatrics like the journalists dropping their cameras on the ground or tilting them to the side to simulate "intensity" as if they're actually taking fire and ducking/weaving behind cover. I was half-expecting to see fake blood on the camera lens, CGI explosions and special effects squib packs on the Marines.

Tim Hetherington (one of the journalists who filmed Restrepo) said it best when he said: "War is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." This is not war unless you're looking at it through the eyes of a pre-pubescent kid who's seen too many movies.

Then there's the heavily self-aggrandizing emphasis on the fractured father-son bond between Mike Boettcher and his bumbling, inexperienced, hare-brained son, who both of whom are "journalists" (I use that term extremely loosely) and decide to go on assignment together so as to reconnect with each other or some other sappy motivation.

This is apparently supposed to win sympathy from the viewer but instead fosters nothing but resentment because despite us hearing about Mike Boettcher's distant, star-studded career and his family life and the ridiculously dramatized concerns about his son's safety in Afghanistan they don't so much as name one soldier filmed in the documentary for the first 35 minutes, give very vague outlines of what operations, incidents or areas they're filming or which regiments/divisions/companies/platoons are being featured and continually turn the cameras back on themselves for no other reason than to have trophy footage, so they can gloat about how dedicated journalists they were, sticking their necks out for journalistic integrity (which they actually keep doing in monologue interviews every 5 minutes).

Like father, like son, both come across as absolutely fcking clueless about the nation of Afghanistan, the conflict itself, the US military, the history/culture/context and seem inadequately prepared for this experience not only psychologically and intellectually but also physically, with the father being well beyond his physical prime, having trouble keeping up with the Marines at walking pace and looking very much like the frightened old man that he is, having no business being in a war zone. Meanwhile his son not being able to memorise simple reporting scripts, not being able to relate any meaningful background information about what's happening or even having to ask what an RPG warhead is when he's staring right at one. No, it's a snow-cone maker you friggin' genius, that was laying on a top of a pile of other munitions.

Forrest Gump Sr. and Jr. both seemed like massive liabilities to the men they were embedded with and massive disinformationists to the people they were supposedly trying to portray the gritty, unfiltered truths of war to.

It's really hard to believe a guy who's seen a veritable who's who of conflict zones in some three decades of war (Iraq, Lebanon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc) whilst reporting for major broadcasting heavyweights like the ABC could get so much, so fundamentally wrong. But this is Hollywood, and people will sell their souls and step over their dead grandmothers for whatever the hell it is they're chasing.

When the Defecation hits the Oscillation