Saving Jessica Lynch: a first-impressions review
Thumbs up.
I thought this was a good movie. It did not romanticize or heroicize Pfc. Lynch or what she endured. NBC didn't make her a female Rambo. The movie spent a lot of time showing what her Iraqi co-rescuer, Mohammed al-Rehaief, risked to tell the Americans about her confinement.
The Nasariyeh battle sequence was well done. My only complaint would be showing the fedayeen just standing in the middle of the street, hip shooting their AK-47s. That's a good way to (a) get killed, as a fair number of them did and (b) shoot the sky, not your targets. But for all know, the fedayeen there really did that. Heck, in Baghdad they charged Abrams tanks with pickup trucks, so their open-battle skills seem not to have been very great.
There was a lot of action about the firefight what wasn't presented, of course, but the movie was not about the whole battle. It tracked Lynch and those involved directly with her.
It was good to see the American military officers and enlisted members portrayed with decency and humanity. The Iraqi medical staff were sympathetically presented, which accords with what I recall was written about them once Nasiriyah was secured and western media moved in. The fedayeen leader was something of a caricature, but on the other hand, when you portray Nazis or those like them, can you really overplay their evil?
The sequence when the SOF uncovered the American bodies from the sand with their hands could have easily been overplayed. But it was understated and evocative without being maudlin.
All in all, this movie was a worthy presentation for Veterans Day weekend. Kudos to NBC.
PS - I am a retired US Army artillery officer.
Thumbs up.
I thought this was a good movie. It did not romanticize or heroicize Pfc. Lynch or what she endured. NBC didn't make her a female Rambo. The movie spent a lot of time showing what her Iraqi co-rescuer, Mohammed al-Rehaief, risked to tell the Americans about her confinement.
The Nasariyeh battle sequence was well done. My only complaint would be showing the fedayeen just standing in the middle of the street, hip shooting their AK-47s. That's a good way to (a) get killed, as a fair number of them did and (b) shoot the sky, not your targets. But for all know, the fedayeen there really did that. Heck, in Baghdad they charged Abrams tanks with pickup trucks, so their open-battle skills seem not to have been very great.
There was a lot of action about the firefight what wasn't presented, of course, but the movie was not about the whole battle. It tracked Lynch and those involved directly with her.
It was good to see the American military officers and enlisted members portrayed with decency and humanity. The Iraqi medical staff were sympathetically presented, which accords with what I recall was written about them once Nasiriyah was secured and western media moved in. The fedayeen leader was something of a caricature, but on the other hand, when you portray Nazis or those like them, can you really overplay their evil?
The sequence when the SOF uncovered the American bodies from the sand with their hands could have easily been overplayed. But it was understated and evocative without being maudlin.
All in all, this movie was a worthy presentation for Veterans Day weekend. Kudos to NBC.
PS - I am a retired US Army artillery officer.