A Review of the first episode of David Simon's "Generation Kill"
--Hope no one minds me posting this here. I think "Wire" fans will want to check it out.
Maybe because I knew growing up that I would never be able to join the military because of my flat feet and birth defects in my ears I became interested in all things relating to the military and war. I've read and watched many things over the years and if I were a true academic I would have to say that one of my specialized fields of research was the fictional and factional portrayal of military life in movies and tv shows.
Therefore I have to say that watching HBO's "Generation Kill" is very exciting to me. Its based on a book about a Marine Recon unit in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. From my perspective, it looks about as real as a tv series can get. Fantastic location shots, authentic looking gear and uniforms, and realistic looking, but not "hollywood" style action sequences are the first layer in the web of believability. The second layer consists of the look and words of the actors. None of the cast looks like your typical hollywood hunk, except for Rudy Reyes, a real member of the Marine Unit who is playing himself. While not excessively pretty, the cast does look interesting and distinctive (which helps alot when you have a big group of actors wearing uniforms). And they do talk about the things you would think a group of young Marines would.
But they have more style and wit than the average person could hope to muster. I'm sure part of this effect is the writer keeping the best lines and leaving out the more ordinary stuff. And part of its is the influence of David Simon. Even though the characters are based on real people, I'm sure they have been filtered through his imagination so that they pop on the screen better. Despite that, I bet that most of the dialog and scenes in the series are very true to the book (which I haven't read). Simon is like that.
The third and final layer in the web is the story. Little details ring true like the Marines struggling with supply problems (like they have done throughout their history), the Catch-22 of having a mustache growing contest and then ragging on a sgt. because his stache is too long, and the very young looking Lieutenant being somewhat in over his head but having the good instincts to take advice from his sgts and the courage to lie to the brass in order to protect the integrity of his unit.
It will be interesting to see what the main themes of this show turn out to be. David Simon focused on depicting individuals caught up in the tangled web of American institutions in his series "The Wire." I can already see "Generation Kill" looking at the Marines as a sometimes flawed institution. But there seems to be an equally big theme about what the Corps is doing right under difficult circumstances.
Another big theme is the treatment of people outside of institutions. The big story point of episode one seemed to be the treatment of a group of Iraqi army deserters who are fleeing death squads. The brass orders the unit to "un-capture" them so that it won't be slowed down in carrying out its objectives. One of the sgts reminds the Lt. of the unit's responsibility to take care of prisoners. Like many of the characters on "The Wire" the Lt is caught between the moral thing to do and what his bosses tell him to do. He wants to keep his job, so he does what his bosses say. I think this tug-of-war between "the right thing" and orders will be another big theme. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
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A word of warning, some of the soldiers depicted in this series do and say things that will make most people uncomfortable. A couple of them are dyed-in-the-wool racists and treat a (the only?) black member of the unit pretty bad although he seems to let it slide off him. The also taunt a "Wigger" (white guy who acts black), but that guy stands up to one of the racists and shuts him down with some very stinging (if not true) remarks about his mother.
In addition to racism, casual homophobia is on display as well as a very a uncomfortable scene where a soldier gets a patriotic letter from a young girl and several of the soldiers leer over her picture and make comments that could land them on NBC's "To Catch a Predator."
Things like that are hard to watch, but its the reality that happens anytime you have a big, diverse group of people (especially young, aggressive men) living together in close quarters. This bad behavior is offset by the wit and humor displayed by some of the soldiers and the professionalism and service displayed by them all. They aren't angels, but they are our defenders.
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