KANDAHAR has the virtue of being more than a quotidian action tale of espionage and its attendant machinations. By taking a brooding rather than kinetic approach, it becomes a bittersweet meditation on, as one character sums up very neatly, the idea that modern wars are not meant to be won. The implications of that provide… Read More »
WAR DOGS
The problem with WAR DOGS is that it refuses to decide what it wants to be. Jittering uncertainly between farce and melodrama, it achieves a few moments of sublime absurdity as it satirizes the business of war by hewing to, and exposing the facts of, said endeavor’s economics. Yet, when it decides to tug at… Read More »
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT is being sold as a comedy and that shortchanges everyone. Based on the memoir by Kim Barker, “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” about her time in the early 2000s as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, it is a trenchant look at media, politics, and the separate reality that… Read More »
Amir Bar-Lev Tells THE TILLMAN STORY
The story of Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative pro football career in order to enlist after 9/11, had all the makings of a legend. When he was killed in Afghanistan, the media and the military made him into a hero who gave his life to save his fellow soldiers. The problem was that… Read More »