Code Name: Geronimo

Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden (2012)

*** (out of 4)

Made-for-TV docudrama taking a look at the Seal operation's twenty-two minute mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. The film starts off nearly a year earlier when the CIA comes across information of a possible hideout for the terrorist and then we follow the steps it took to take him down. SEAL TEAM SIX certainly isn't a masterpiece and there are all sorts of flaws in it but at the same time I think it gets the job done with a high entertainment factor. I think the film works best as pure entertainment because there's really a lack of drama or suspense that keeps it from being better. I'm not even certain how accurate everything is but this here doesn't matter too much because there's no question that the film grabs your attention right from the start and doesn't let it go. I think the best moments in the film are all the behind the scenes stuff where we get to see what was going on inside the CIA as they were trying to get the President to sign off on the operation. I enjoyed seeing this stuff as the CIA would have to discuss what proof they had that bin Laden was in this building as well as having to look at what would happen if they were wrong. The performances were all very good and one really couldn't ask for more. The flaws of the film include some very weak CGI effects at times as well as an annoying use of real photographs to try and build drama. Most of the photographs are of President Obama and having still frame photos in the movie just made the thing feel cheap and it certainly didn't add anything. We'll have to wait and see how the second, theatrical bin Laden movie will compare but while this one is flawed it's at least entertaining.