American Soldier-Good movie
Nelson Guirado | Pico Rivera, California United States | 10/18/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Amongst a small but vocal section of our wonderful society, only two depictions of US soldiers suffice, cruel or dumb-(misled dumb or just plain dumb). American Soldiers refreshingly avoids these stereotypes and portrays soldiers as complicated moral agents in a complicated situation. AS is the third quality small-budget, DVD-only war movie I've seen in a row. The story involves a squad of American soldiers plus one or two friendly Iraqi policemen experiencing one single hellish day. The day starts off with an ambush followed by an IED, then what seems to be a conglomeration of iraq war headlines-car bombings, torture, everything. It's kind of like Black Hawk Down, but I didn't notice the resemblance until just now. Some of the dialogue is near cringe-inducing, involving war ruminations and summations of the points of view of which you've no doubt grown sick. American Soldiers held my interest throughout and passed the normal-person test as Patti thouroughly enjoyed it. The movie contains one of the best endings in a war movie, and the producers were definately advised well as all of the props, military terms, and situations were spot-on. American Soldiers gets a bonus star for being the only normal Iraq war movie available, as far as I know.
My blog"
Blood and guts and smouldering, dismembered body parts
Film Fan | Spain | 07/28/2006
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Blood and guts and smouldering, dismembered body parts. Not really my type of entertainment. I hired it before reading the comments of my fellow Amazon critics. Based on fact, it was probably a realistic account of 24 hours in the life of American soldiers in Iraq. Absolute hell by the look of it. The acting was a bit mediocre but it did show what these poor boys have to go through. Nevertheless, I wouldn't watch it again."
Pogue fodder
Gerry Kissell | Missouri | 08/01/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Under the suggestion of a filmmaker friend of mine, I thought I'd give this film a tumble.
What I found was a film depicting soldiers acting and talking unprofessionally, and discussing political screeds that front line soldiers never talk about, especially when under fire.
In fact the characters talk too much. They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about crap no soldier in his right mind would ever talk about.
The acting was atrocious.
A combat medic complaining about being a medic? I was a combat medic, and that just never happens.
It had occasional good action scenes, but over all it was really a horrible film.
Guys like Furie should leave the writing and making of modern war films to guys who have either actually served in that conflict or at least done some serious "real" research about soldiers and modern warfare and the conflict they are writing about.
Man, I miss guys like John Ford."
A GRUNT's tale...
vmzfla | Orlando, Fl. | 05/26/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This film is loosely based on actual events stemming from April 2004, the costliest month of US casualties since the declaration of the end of hostilities in Iraq. It follows a squad of US Army soldiers as they fend off ambush on top of ambush in the tradition of "Back Hawk Down". Surprisingly this low budget Canadian production takes an almost John Wayne approach, emphasising heroism and commraderie. The cast of virtual unknowns form an unexpected cohesiveness, that this reviewer hopes is instilled in every American infantry unit. The contradictions are there. Why are we in Iraq? We need to be there! Was it worth loosing all those lives? Are we appreciated by those we have liberated? What have we accomplished? On and on. The film is very episodic and has annoying breaks inbetween scenes. Those who want a bangem up, shootem up movie will surely be satisfied. Director, Sidney Furie has done his best to make the interplay between the troopers seem realistic. The squad always after quick debate reluctantly does the right thing. The attitude is we're Americans and we're not like them! There are a couple conventional subplots that I don't want to give away and spoil it! WWII, Korea, and ofcourse Vietnam have all had movies made like this. Why shouldn't Gulf War II?"