New on DVD
In their seven-part Iraq War miniseries adaptation of Evan Wright’s book Generation Kill, David Simon and Ed Burns roll up a quiverful of arrows to fire off at various topics, ranging from the rampaging adrenaline of young men at war to the supreme idiocy of the invasion itself. However, the bright and gleaming theme running through most of these hard-bitten episodes has the filmmakers illustrating an age-old military maxim: Soldiers are often much more likely to be killed by the decisions of their submoronic leadership than they are by actions undertaken by the enemy. When that enemy is as pathetic a force as Saddam’s Republican Guard, and the American officer corps obsessed more with the idea of taking Baghdad at warp speed than properly clearing the territory they’re pushing through (both points made time and again in this series), that maxim is even more true than usual…
Generation Kill is now available on DVD, with helpful military slang glossary. Read the full review at filmcritic.com.
Chris Barsanti 