REVIEW: ‘Lifted’ — The Anti-War Movie for Everyone
by John WordinIn my role as Executive Director of Ride 2 Recovery, a mental and physical rehabilitation program for injured veterans that makes a difference in the lives of those who come thru our program (more info: Ride2Recovery.com), I am asked to preview movies, music, and all things military and, or veteran related entertainment. Since we deal with a lot of PTSD patients, the scars of war are all to familiar and the haunting that they feel and the effects it takes on their families is hard to explain to those who do not know these brave men and women or experienced war and its related hardships themselves.
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So it was last Thursday that I, along with a few other military organizations came to meet for a viewing of the upcoming movie “Lifted.” Because the director was a noted Hollywood liberal, I was not really sure what I was about to see.
In this ever polarized environment we live in today, it is rare to find a movie about the War on Terror that takes both a decided anti-war theme, but yet gives supporters of the conflict a chance to feel pride in the way a boy and his family overcome the struggles of deployment.
Such a movie will hopefully be in a multiplex near you very soon. That movie is “Lifted.”
Written and directed by Academy Award-nominated director Lexi Alexander, “Lifted” stars talented twelve-year-old Uriah Shelton in his movie debut. The movie takes place and was filmed on location in rural Alabama.
The plot revolves around Henry Matthews, played by Shelton, as an exceptionally talented young R& B singer, whose happy family life is disrupted when his father, a Marine, is re-deployed to Afghanistan and, despite all the obstacles including losing the family home and being forced to move in with his grandfather who hates his music, is inspired to enter a teen singing competition in the hopes of winning and escaping a world that is falling apart.
Uriah Shelton
As you watch the movie unfold, you look at it in two ways: first is the technical side in which Alexander shoots the timeline of the fathers deployment, his mothers struggles with drug addiction, and the torment of Henry as an outcast in school and at home, and second the story itself and the overall feeling one takes away at the end of the movie with a plot twist that leaves you raw with emotion.
The movie is centered in the relationship between father and son and the music they create together. The father, played by Dash Mihok (”The Good Wife”), provides the freestyle routines that help give the movie its soul.
Others appearing in the movie include; Todd Simpson, former American Idol winner Ruben Studdard, country singer Trace Adkins and former MTV DJ Alan Hunter as himself.
Dash Mihok
At the end, one is left with a family struggling with drug addiction, unemployment, losing their family home, a boy’s dream, and the father’s deployment overseas. While you can say that there are a few issues with certain points in the way the plot unfolds (a scene with Studdard and the mother looking for Henry comes to mind), you are ultimately left with an emotional experience of a boy and his father and the bond they share.
In all my time dealing with wounded troops and the issues of deployment, the strain on the family, the overcoming of obstacles, and the idea that hope exists, this film does the best job of trying to capture all of it in 90 minutes and I hope you will soon be LIFTED….
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73 Comments
Sounds like your heart's in the right place…
I'm in!
Who writes these films full of dribble? Why does the mother have to be a drug addict? What is with the unemployment, that is such a terrible thing? Come into my world! This kid gives up on his dream….. and this is all something to do with this war? Or the film being anti-war but yet shows the other side? Who are these liberals think they are fooling? YOu can spread all the white creamy cake frosting on a lump of sh*t and you will be eating sh*t!
Why can't we have a happy wife, who is in love with had husband who is deployed and she is home alone and urges the kid to chase his dream. YOu give up on a dream you never had one to begin with. You think Hollywood would ever had the cast iron balls to make one damn film that shows an American family that has a son that goes to war comes home, finds a job, goes to school and everything is jake. You know like that 98% of veteran from all of our wars. Why do we have to sit and pay good money to watch a bunch of BS from people who have no GD experience with families who kids or fathers go to war… Come talk to me….
This is the same crap that Hollywood make this time its sugar coated. Why everyone out there gives these bums the money to continue to make this crap is beyond me. Then they ignore a film that honors and pays tribute to the Vietnam Vets and there are no druggies in my film, no dear John letters, no one who is dysfunctional, no one has diarrhea in the bush.
I feel like I am pissing against the wind out here…. aren't you guys out there fed up with the woe is me films?
http://www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com
Not a very good case made for why this movie's different from others of its ilk. Sounds like they could've left out the concept of Deployed GI Dad, found some other reason for why he wasn't around for his son, and still had the same story. The actor playing the dad here also played one of the GIs in The Thin Red Line given some of its pretentious, antiwar voiceover lines; he's typecast with me on the basis of that film, and I don't mean that as a compliment.
I hear you, Jack. I feel the same way. At times, I feel like this kind of movie is about the best we will ever get from Hollywood. (But, don't worry… it doesn't mean I'll be spending my money to go see it. I'll wait for a while, until there's a more pervasive opinion.)
I, too, get tired of movies that drag my emotions through the mud… only then to be told, "hey, look, at least the movie didn't offend us in these three ways!"
Thx for your contribution. I'll bookmark your weblink, and check it out later.
Eagerly awaiting the New Hollywood.
Those of you still skeptical about how the film depicts the troops should look at the bio of the author who wrote this review. No one has the ultimate moral authority, but … well, please read his bio. If there's a better friend to our Warriors I haven't met him.
That's fine and dandy, but why have an anti-war movie? That just seems to cheapen service, no matter how disposed the author is to the military.
I would never dream of comparing the two, but James Cameron CLAIMS to be pro-military himself because of his brother in the service.
The war itself is not the problem. Everybody knows war is bad. Its the situation the war is being waged to solve that's the problem, and it would still be there even in the absence of war…
Does "Paths of Glory" cheapen service? Does "All Quiet on the Western Front?"
The guy who wrote this review has dedicated his life to seeing to it America's warriors are not cheapened and given the dignity they so rightly deserve.
It's just makes me thing that if Audie Murphy wrote this review people would still be sniping. Unbelievable.
I pray that God blesses you for your work with our military heroes.
Bad things happen to good people.
Agreed. War is a terrible sin humanity is plagued with. Its controlled chaos. I pray someday humanity can finally rise above it.
But sadly, that's not going top happen in my life time.
Mr. Nolte, I appreciate your appeal to us to think more critically. I would only say this, the obvious, that a lot of us are tired and cynical of hollywood projects depicting the military and the war … or any war. Does it need to be pro war? Obviously not.
What is needed is pro-soldier, pro-american service character, and pro-US. I'm tired of the anti-American propaganda that we've been spoon fed since the pro-WW2 movies we deemed unfashionable. Anything pro-US is seen as propaganda , especially if it's pro-US. Well, the opposite is truer… all the realist and victim-soldier movies have the opposite effect if you ask me.
So, if a lot of others on here are like me, we ACHE for a realist war-movie. Wars are necessary and they are a fact of human life. There is NO society of free people without it and to be anti-war is to be living in a surreal wonder-world. Tell the good character stories of honor and courage and the ideals that mean so much to us as Americans. ONE movie, once in awhile that rooted for us,… the Americans… and didn't have little asides or "checks" in there somewhere would be great.
I feel like a Twilight Zone quote is best here.
"…And while there are men, there can be no peace. "
A freestyling rapper Marine? Come on Dude!
With all due respect to the reviewer, I'm not sure if I'd see this film. What do we need LESS of from hollywood, anti-war films or white-rappers?
Well, we would all like to see a movie like that but it's not the ONLY kind of movie that would please me.
Good grief.
My grandmother used to tell me that if you're too hard to please people will stop trying.
Mr. Nolte, I agree with your Grandmother. That's not the 'only" movie I'm waiting for either. Won't be made. I'll take what comes and I understand too, there is just no way a satiating movie like I described will be made in Hollywood. That desire is as unobtainable as a world without war.
This movie sounds intriguing and I appreciate this reviewers background. I also greatly appreciate your point of view and Big Hollywood.. so Thank you and keep up the good work. Love ya man!
I, too, was invited to watch “Lifted” as part of Ms. Alexander’s military outreach. I disagree with Mr. Wordin’s assertion that it is a decidedly “anti-war” film. It certainly has depressing elements (i.e. the mother’s addiction, financial hardship) but never does it dishonor the father’s service or the military in general. I saw it more as a tribute to the sacrifices the father makes for his family. He could have resisted his activation from reserve status but he honors his commitment willingly.
Despite some minor flaws (note to directors: ALWAYS have a full-time military advisor on a military film) “Lifted” is a nice little movie. It’s just a story about a family. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll end with this: I defy anyone to not be moved by the ending of this film.
aren't you guys out there fed up with the woe is me films?
aren't you guys out there fed up with the woe is me films?
Yup. What ever happened to the movies where our troops are heroes. My friends son is a Marine and has done a tour in Iraq and is currently in the battle going on in Afghanistan. One HELL of a young man. I think he is 21 and compared to the limp dicked scum infesting our left wing campuses he is a Hero and much better then they will ever be.
Well I am just tired of the crap Hollyweird puts out when depicting our troops. I personally know a Marine in Afghanistan right now in the big battle. And having talked to him the majority of them are men who suck it up and do the job. All hollyweird seems to do is put out movies of dysfunctional soldiers with screwed up families. Or sadist troops that just kill for the fun of it. I dare say if the man you are talking about wrote a story about heroes and not drug addicts and lost houses etc. no door would have been opened for him in La La land.
thanks for your review and view on this.
Wow.. You know.. I feel for you.. you sound like me when someone just had to say something such as "well you know HE ( Obummer) is doing the best he can, with for what he was left with..
I know the flames shoot out at them. Honestly I am on a short fuse these days in reaction to the idiots who believe in mr Make Believe.. back to the war films.. I get it.. for all the right reasons.. too many excuses made for hollywood.. not enough apologies .. The majority out there I can no longer stand to see in the news and rarely do the movies.. They do not move me..
I went to your site. I get that, even more. If it hadn't been for the Green Berets, what film ever portrayed our VM vets as most were and are.. I plan on getting a copy. One question. I hailed from CT when middleclass families could still afford it and worked with Marino Crane from Boston any relation.??
Patricia
But it would be a breathe of fresh air to see a few of these coming down the path in the past 40 years of so and we wouldn't be so touchy with every little thing in a film that might be sympathetic. We haven't had that since John Wayne's Green Berets or going back to all those WWII films that the left call propaganda films. What is COMING HOME, DEER HUNTER, PLATOON, APOCALYPSE NOW, aren't these post Vietnam propaganda films? Where is the difference one promotes America is the good guy the other promotes that America is the bad guy.
After 40 years of the one note charlie coming out of Hollywood we conservatives tend to get a little more sensitive to every nuance in a film. Just as military people pick on ever little ribbon, patch, expression, and bearing in a war film if is isn't just right. That all came out of the 70s from film after film spitting on the Vietnam guys and their reaction was to pick on each little thing they saw wrong up there to counter act the cinematic spitting they were getting. Even if the film is pro troop they get to picky, but as long as the story is positive in a sea of negativity, than that is a small breathe of fresh air.
Hello John,
I do not beleive anyone meant anything directed at John Wordin. He is special .. its hollywood and having to have something pointedly dysfunctional when it comes Soldiers and to war films in general.
As to your Grandmother, she was very ,very wise.. As we all have noted with so many of the anti- american everything films bombing at the box offices.
Patricia
As a 20 year military wife, I won't be seeing this movie. It may be very good, I don't know. But I've been burned enough by "pro-military" movies and what not. If I want to know about the military, I'll call on my husband's expertise.
Edski,
Good things happen to bad people too.
It would be nice, just one time that we have a film where good things happen to good people…. what a novel idea for hollywood to come up with! You think there is enough brain power in the 5 studios to come up with a film where we all come out of the theater like we did with Braveheart? What vast eternal plan would it destroy if we dare show the American soldier as John Wayne again??
We have been beaten up since 69 with these war films attacking the troops. The left called and a lot of conservatives too call John Wayne films propaganda films and what was Platoon and all the films that came out of the 70s and 80s? They were propaganda films for the left to justify their anti-war protesting while their fellow Americans were being thrown into a meat grinder in Vietnam. This is all this is about , now they are attacking the troops today and it isn't sticking as it did in 1970.
I don't think anyone is going after the person who wrote the review at all. I am, its the imagery that is presented by the writer and director of this film. Have we been desentitize that we can't see little hints that this family has a problem because of this war that the liberals hate?
I wonder what Audie Murphy would write is he was still alive and have seen ever war film ever made from the 70s to today. I wonder what he would think of Oliver Stone and DePlama as Americans. We have all grown shell shock watching films since the 70s, this is what the left have done to the movie going experience for all of us.
'My grandmother used to tell me that if you're too hard to please people will stop trying.'
Yeah, imagine me asking for people to put some effort, moral backbone, historical perspective, and human interest in films.
Must be my fault as a viewer, not conforming to whatever standards the artists set for themselves.
Hi Patricia, thank you! I made FORGOTTEN HEROES after I saw Platoon which was the final straw for me in a long line of films made by this lousy town spitting on a generation of heroes during the vietnam war. The leftist malcontents spit on these heroes to cover up for their blatant cowardice and hatred for America. I am selling my DVD to the general public and the response has been fabulous. The American Public is the true judge of the work of guys like me. I don't give too much weight to people here in Hollywood who have not made a film of if they did they never traveled the road I did. I am donating 25% of all the DVD GROSS sales to the AMERICAN VETERANS DISABLED FOR LIFE MEMORIAL FUND.
Patricia I am not related to the Marino's of Marino Crane in CT. They are the hard working Marino's I came out to Hollywood to be a filmmaker because real work scared the ever living hell out of me. I hope you enjoy the film and tell all your friends out there about FORGOTTEN HEROES.
CJ, FORGOTTEN HEROES was going to be a trend setter for my company. They stopped me at the gates, but I am still here like a bad penny. The public is buying my DVD and if the economy was like it was in 2005 I'd be selling like gang busters. But life is what it is and I am NOT going anywhere until I hit my DVD goal. Give the film a shot, BIG HOLLYWOOD is the place that provides a place for conservatives to promote their films. I have no e-mail to send you this CJ, so this is the only place I can put it
“ Forgotten Heroes” reverberates with the spirit of courage, camaraderie and conviction that, until now, only those who endured the horrors of Vietnam firsthand could fully comprehend. Unique among the predominantly guilt-ridden Vietnam films to which audiences have become accustomed, “Forgotten Heroes” is not a political diatribe, but a heartfelt anthem to the brave men who gave their lives for their country.”
-Wade Major Associate Editor- Entertainment Today
the whole point is yes, bad things happen as they do in all movies, but having a father in deployment adds a whole new level of difficulty. You know what the difference is between propaganda and a good story? A good story is about people overcoming adversity.
The fact that conservatives have reason to be sensitive over the nuance in film does not mean they are justified in being over sensitive to the degree that they dismiss or invent how it is not anti service when thats patently untrue. Even if it is anti war, does that means dismissing it if they tell a good story?
What I hate about arguments concerning anti or pro war media peaces is that saying its simply write or simply wrong is a dumbing down broad stroke way to approach the issue of war in general. It has good points and bad points, even when it is done for the right reasons. The better question here should be, was appropriately nuanced, in Mr Wordin's case I think it was.
Is it anti war though? The problems that exist are about the difficulties created by simple distance. There are people deployed to west Europe who would also have to overcome those issues.
Totally with ya, Jack, but not for nuthin', considering you have the (GD) experience with a kid who's gone to war, why don't you write that movie?
Aaron, it isn't about anti-war or pro war… its about pro troop and anti troop. Do we create an image on that screen were the American is a liberator in all our wars or are they SS troops. The image that Hollywood has created now that no one can see the difference. Look at Avatar the Marines are destroyers and that idiot Cameron now denies this. This is all leftist propaganda and these gutless leftist SOBs don't have the guts to allow a filmmaker like me to tackle this problem to make a film that is pro troop for every piece of crap they make. They are pussies plain and simple or my film would have been out there. ITS ALL BULLCRAP
but did the creator of the film really lack moral backbone historical perspective and moral interest? Or is this a hypersensative reaction given how conservatives are usually treated. To me the whole point of the article is to say don't get hypersensitive, watch it, then judge.
see but now you're talking about other movies and hollywood in general. You're letting the beating hollywood usually administers to you force you into prejudgement.
You do realize though that non of the problems mentioned in the article are actually concerning the soldier himself right? In my mind, seeing a soldier and knowing that he left when these things could happen to his family makes his sacrifice all that much more significant and powerful. That to me is actually a decidedly pro troop message that makes me appreciate them that much more.
Aaron,
Without having seen the film, I can only comment on what I see in the trailer…the "Marine" kind of looks like a Corpsman, beacause of the length of his hair and the way he's wearing his cover. (As POTUS read of TOTUS, "Corpse-man")
Is it our fault that we're gun shy about hollywood's depiction of the military.
I'm certain this film will get the same MSM orgy of praise as the "Hurt Locker", which I saw but did not like.
I hear you. My cousin is 24 and is recently home from his 2nd tour in Iraq with the Marines. Another cousin, 18, is in basic for Army Intelligence. My uncle is a Colonel stationed, last I heard, at Ft. Leavenworth. He's to retire shortly, after having served most of his adult life. Our troops are amazing men and women, and they deserve respect and gratitude.
It's not your fault you're gun shy (I'm actually a "reasoned liberal" but even I acknowledge the hollywood bias), but as I've said, thats the point of the article, to inform you that this might just be okay if you try not to be.
Fair enough Aaron.
Well, I guess you could just call this movie the sequel to "Up in the Air". If the Clooney character was a corporate road warrior for most of the year, and he had a family, you could just as easily examine the effects of his absence…or focus on a Rock Star who's out on tour.
If the point of the film is meant to be the effects on the absence of a parent, why present that from the POV of a "noted Hollywood liberal", why don't they drink their own bath water, so to speak.
I am going to throw my two cents in before I go back and read what is sure to be alot of silly bickering:
My name is Clay Hunt. I am a current student at LMU. I also happen to be a veteran of BOTH Iraq and Afganistan. I am a USMC Scout/Sniper, check my creds if you feel the need. I am a Purple Heart recipient, and I am being treated for PTSD, a TBI, and a host of other lingering injuries, which have led to my wife and I's recent separation.Enough about me.
I was given the opportunity to screen "lifted" the other night, and my immediate reaction to the conclusion was this: EVERY PERSON WHO HAS THE PRIVILEGE TO RESIDE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEEDS TO BE MADE TO WATCH THIS MOVIE, from President Obama to the guy who served you your Starbucks latte this morning. This movie is real. I have seen it played out in the lives of countless friends and brothers, and in my own as well. On 14 MAR 2007, I somehow cheated death and took a bullet through my wrist less than one inch from my throat. And I was the luckiest of many of my brothers.
What is just as real, and is even less thought-about by those who send boys and girls to war, is the impact that that has on the family of a deployed soldier, Marine, airman,, or sqibbie. I won't bore you with my story, but I have stood next to my fellow Marines as they read a "dear John" letter, and still had the fortitude to go out on patrol an hour later in 120 degree heat. And I have seen women completely crushed because their husbands don't come home from combat the same as they were when they left. Stop turning a blind eye to us America, because we deserve your respect, whether you feel like it or not.
Respectfully, Clay Hunt
go to http://blog.teamrubiconhaiti.org/ if you are interested in seeing what myself and my fellow veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are doing with their lives. what are you doing with yours? please wake up.
Thank you for your service, Clay. On your recommendation alone, I'll see the movie.
Because if it was about a rock star we wouldn't really care as much about the significance of their absence on their family. As far as "noted hollywood liberal" goes, I think the point of using that phrase was to make people aware that they would be tempted to prejudge but they shouldn't. Also, while there are droves of hollywood liberals, I do think that term gets tossed around too often. While many do not support the war, I have known more than a few that very much so support the troops. Unfortunately their war stance being so vocal, gets that label put on them.
Do you have a stake in this movie or something? You're spending far too much time and energy defending a movie that you have no part in and haven't even seen.
No stake whatsoever, I just like to follow a discussion thread like this out so i can have a full discussion. I'm interested in the responses I get much more than what I had to say.
For me there is no excuse for a mother who turns to drugs.I apologise if I have the story wrong,but it looks like the mother turns to drugs because the husband is gone.Bad reflection on army wives if that is the story line.I lost my husband(to cancer) and was left with 3 young children to raise,I did not turn to drugs,those children needed me.I'm the first to admit that I wasn't the best mother,but I did the best I could to raise children that recognised life can be rough.No bitterness-,that's the key- to my mind.I will watch this when it comes out on DVD,because I don't know the ending,for me the ending would be the mother cleaning up her act,and promising her child that she will never put him through something like that again.
I don't get out to see many movies but I sure as heck won't avoid this one. It is also hard to think making comments to some people who will not only disregard the reviews of a film at this site but try to run the movie down without seeing it, is doing nothing but talking to myself. If you would be so kind as to post again in a later Open Thread maybe you can open a few eyes to the impact this film can offer.
And, Thank you, Mr. Hunt.
no film is really PRO war…
War is an ugly business, as those who have participated can attest. No amount of sugarcoating alters that fact.
Then it becomes a matter of perspective- was it just, was it responsibly waged- was it worth it?
Iraq,like all wars, will be judged by the sands of time. Principled people can disagree- those who were against a war of choice, and it was that- may never like it even if the outcome is, as it seems, positive.
The warfighters are another story altogether. This was an exceedingly difficult time for them; very similar to the Vietnam conflict. Only now you have a 24/7 instant information cycle. And with the breakthroughs in battlefiel triage we have a bounty of survivors- with dramatic stories to recount.
Expect more like this…
ALAN HUNTER! I'm sure he was glad for the call. Glad to see he can still get work.
If you want to puzzel anyone under 25, ask them who the Original 5 MTV VeeJays were. I'm 41, my cousins are all younger than i am. I asked one (who is 21) that question and his answer is, AND I QUOTE, "What's a VJ?" I told him that they hosted MTV in between the music videos. "YOU MEAN MTV ONCE PLAYED MUSIC VIDEOS?"
Kids!
Given that the movie has defenders among veterans and those who care about them, it seems to me that unlike the anti-war trash Hollyweird has inundated us with so far – movies which were nothing but primitive agitprop – this movie may actually be, to use the dreaded word, nuanced.
I agree with you in general. Yes, our soldiers would deserve more positive stories, absolutely. I know and deplore what the left has done over the past decades. But I am not sure this movie is "attacking troops" by focusing on the hardships (which can be real after all). Are you saying it is not even possible to tell such stories without attacking the troops? I would disagree with that. Just because the left exploits certain issues – be it the environment or the strife of veterans and their families – doesn´t mean they get to own them forever.
How about some movies about battlefield heroism? Why must we see nothing but this introspective crap that is largely meaningless? There are always weak links who can't deal with their experiences. There are, however, 99% of vets who can and whose stories need to be told because of what they did in war to protect us.
Clay,
Thank you for your service. I respectfully disagree with you on this. Most military go to war, and reintegrate themselves with some help, but don't go through the dysfunction this family goes through. I think by presenting the extremes you give the public who does not know military- the idea that we ARE ALL like this. I have been an Army wife for 18 years- my kids are happy, healthy well adjusted- I have no drug issues. My husband is set to deploy again to Afghanistan in a few weeks. Will my kids have some issues? Yes, but we will deal and drive on.
On a side note: I am not sure when the family lost the home, but there are laws to prevent or hold off while you are deployed. There is help out there for the military. Is the system perfect? No, but if families like those presented in the film don't reach out- they can't be helped.
Jack,
Thank you so much! That is exactly what we need! My husband leaves in a few weeks for Afghanistan again– and I am not drug ridden- We have been married for 18 years(the whole of his military career) and have two beautiful well-adjusted children. By celebrating these movies, we are celebrating the message- that veterans of these wars are dysfunctional. That is simply not true. Some need help, but most come back and integrate just fine.
Bearfoot, Hollywood will NEVER make that film as long as these leftist malcontents are controlling the money. It has to come from the private sector and filmmakers like myself. You make a pro troop film in this town Hollywood shuts you out of the game on both sides of the fence. You know the old saying 'every one loves a winner' then you get support, who needs it at that time. Don't wait for Hollywood to honor our heroic troops not with this crowd in charge. All I can tell you is to support a film like FORGOTTEN HEROES by buying the DVD each one sold is a victory for our side that loves the troops. If not nothing will change and all we will do on this site is piss and moan and NOTHING changes.
My gripe with this little film has to go with the makers of this film, not the reviewer. After a long line of anti-american, anti troop films coming out of the toilet called Hollywood this maybe the nearest film that honors our troops.
My problem is this is in the writing, liberals can't and wont write that the wife loves her husband, works for operation gratitude and makes her son pursue his dream as a singer. She has to be a drug addict and the old is deployed and the kid gives up on his dream because his father has to fight a war that really isn't popular.
You want to think this happen to every returning soldier out there from every war then you can eat all the fried ice cream you can. The problem is Hollywood controls this RIGGED game called filmmaking, give me some of the damn funding that these maniacs piss away making films that piss on America and I will crank out films that piss on liberals and then we can sit and have a round table debate. How the hell can you win in a boxing match when only one boxer is allowed in the ring?
The problem with Hollywood is that we are all stepping in dog poop for the past 40 years and we can't smell it anymore.
I am not really going to justify your ignorance with much of a response, other than this: I don't know of a single USMC 0317 who can be considered a weak link. I challenge you to live that life for a week. It would leave YOU broken, physically and mentally, in probably 48 hours.
John,
How many movies about our soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan lately have told the stories of the remarkable heroes we have in our military? That's a big fat 0, zip, nada. How many 'antiwar' movies have demaeaned the service of our brave soldiers in this War on Terrorists. Every single one. This movie is no exception. We aren't shooting the messenger, just another crappy, faux emotion laden movie that has to twist and degrade fine soldiers and their families to make a buck. This is probably a fair review but I don't really care how 'great' the actors or stories are if movie only sells the negative image of our heroes and their lives in this all out War on Terrorists. Liberal Hollywood will never show true American experience, just the abberation of the normal. Is this really helping anyone other than the leftie creep that made the movie?? I for one refuse to see this crap no matter how technically "great' it is.
not in ANY of our lifetimes, friend. We need to evolve past the apes with A-bombs phase first…
But this isn´t "Platoon". This movie may be awful, it may be good, I don´t know. I am still sceptical. It just doesn´t seem right to me to try to get back at the Hollywood left by automatically hammering every movie that doesn´t adhere to a one line synopsis of what a perfect war movie would be.
I would be interested to know why a German female martial arts expert who came to Hollywod in the 1990s
chose to make a movie, of all subjects, about American soldiers and their families. The story behind it would certainly be illuminating.
>just the abberation of the normal
Bah- Your quote is a perfect EXAMPLE of what this movie does by potraying military families the way it does. Let's take for a second that it actually honors the father's military service… It COMPLETELY dishonors the men & women who sacrifice everyday while their loved ones are deployed. We are just has honorable & disciplined. We aren't driven to bad parenting, drugs or any other number of vices. We are strong & we pick up the pieces and keep the homefront going.
Even if it honors the military and isn't anti-military.. It certainly is anti-military family or anti-military spouse.
[...] personal world that is falling apart. The movie has met with great reviews. You can read about it here. You can follow Dash Mihok on Twitter here: Dash [...]
OK, what is with the financial hardship thing. My son spent a year as a PFC (E-3) in Iraq and paid off 33K worth of student loans and still had a good stake left. You get extra pay and it is tax free. I know E-7's that clear 75K a year over there. Soldering is hard dangerous work and no one is claiming they are overpaid but they are not destitute.
This is a GREAT MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I went to the screening. It will bow you away, you don't know what will come up next. All the negative comments need to stop if you haven't seen the movie. To be honest, this could possibly be someones story or very close to it. So please, stop all the BS about 'a white rapper' and 'why does the wife have to be on crack?'. Ask that question in real life because this is one of the closes movies I have ever seen next to real life. And not everyone has money to come home to when they return from war, ask the veterans.
It's not pro military…
And it's not trying to school you on it either, it's really about a boy and his talent and his dad happens to be in the military.
What r u talking about??? Search the film on google because that's not what the movie is about
I am amazed at all the drivel of negativity about this wonderful movie. If you haven`t seen it, why would you post negative comments? I was moved to tears at the end and thought it was one of the best movies I have ever seen with less than a 2 million dollar budget. You who have not seen this movie should see it, before you pass judgement. Great movie!
Linnilu…this movie is a great movie about a little boy….it is incidental that his father is in the military. You are on the wrong side of this one…
Might want to see it before you complain about it…
Noelene..its only a movie! sheesh The mother had drug problems not related to the fact that her husband is in the military! ..what is with you people!? Watch the movie before you make false claims.
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