I've given this film a good rating because, based as it is on a set of particular facts, it doesn't fit into the usual war-film mold. It may be so mainly by default, but that doesn't make it any less original. Here's the mold. A small group of soldiers sets out on a difficult mission. There are fire fights. Some of the men die. The enemy is faceless. The mission is successfully completed. If they are captured, they escape. If the patrol was cocky at the start, they return chastened. That template doesn't apply here.
In this film, the impression one gets is that the mission of the British patrol was only partly completed, since their presence was discovered and they had to leave their observation post under fire. In trying to reach the safety of the Syrian border the eight men lose each other. And Andy MacNab (Sean Bean) is captured by Iraqis.
The second half of the film has us watching his suffering in a special prison. The Iraqis aren't entirely faceless either. They beat hell out of MacNab but not before showing us some of the reasons for the Iraqi's rage. An elderly man, weeping operatically, uncovers the mutilated body of his son, one of the Iraqi soldiers killed during a fire fight, before throwing himself on a British prisoner and feebly squeezing and pinching his face. Later we learn that the patrol has killed more than a hundred Iraqis and put another hundred in the hospital.
The torture MacNab and the two other members of his patrol undergo is convincing without being overly dwelt on. He spends most of his time manacled, stripped, and blindfolded. A dentist pulls out one of MacNab's teeth. But the most telling degradation is when MacNab is forced to clean out a primitive toilet that has become clogged, using only his bare hands, and when finished, he is made to lick his hands clean. A viewer might ask if this is really "torture", and the answer might well be, "not according to the definition now employed by the US government, since there is no pain and no question of organ failure."
Unlike most fictional war stories, the three British prisoners don't escape. Moreover, MacNab tells his captors what they want to know about his unit and its mission, distributing little misleading lies here and there to diminish the value of the information. Of course MacNab protests the Iraqi treatment of him and his two colleagues because it isn't permitted by the Geneva Convention. His captor deals him a blow and adds, "We are not in Geneva."
MacNab and four others out of the eight-man patrol manage to reach home through the offices of the Red Cross. "War is barbaric," MacNab muses, but he holds little ill will against his torturers since they were just doing their jobs. He does, however, dislike the Iraqis who seemed to enjoy inflicting pain, and if he met one of them on the street, he would probably slug him. At least I THINK that's what he thought. The working-class accents and the slang were so thick that I was unable to understand some of the exchanges.
MacNab is pretty philosophical about his experiences, and not at all chastened or brutalized. Naturally war is barbaric, but MacNab knew that going in, and he has no intention of giving up the profession of arms. He doesn't seem to have any real enemies, doesn't hate anybody, and surely isn't anxious to be captured and tortured again, but what the hell, the army has given him a chance to be all he can be!
In the usual war movie, our side almost always wins, sometimes at great sacrifice. Here, the conflict kind of peters out, as great historical events have a way of doing. That may or may not make for a satisfying narrative, but it does resemble life a little more closely.
In this film, the impression one gets is that the mission of the British patrol was only partly completed, since their presence was discovered and they had to leave their observation post under fire. In trying to reach the safety of the Syrian border the eight men lose each other. And Andy MacNab (Sean Bean) is captured by Iraqis.
The second half of the film has us watching his suffering in a special prison. The Iraqis aren't entirely faceless either. They beat hell out of MacNab but not before showing us some of the reasons for the Iraqi's rage. An elderly man, weeping operatically, uncovers the mutilated body of his son, one of the Iraqi soldiers killed during a fire fight, before throwing himself on a British prisoner and feebly squeezing and pinching his face. Later we learn that the patrol has killed more than a hundred Iraqis and put another hundred in the hospital.
The torture MacNab and the two other members of his patrol undergo is convincing without being overly dwelt on. He spends most of his time manacled, stripped, and blindfolded. A dentist pulls out one of MacNab's teeth. But the most telling degradation is when MacNab is forced to clean out a primitive toilet that has become clogged, using only his bare hands, and when finished, he is made to lick his hands clean. A viewer might ask if this is really "torture", and the answer might well be, "not according to the definition now employed by the US government, since there is no pain and no question of organ failure."
Unlike most fictional war stories, the three British prisoners don't escape. Moreover, MacNab tells his captors what they want to know about his unit and its mission, distributing little misleading lies here and there to diminish the value of the information. Of course MacNab protests the Iraqi treatment of him and his two colleagues because it isn't permitted by the Geneva Convention. His captor deals him a blow and adds, "We are not in Geneva."
MacNab and four others out of the eight-man patrol manage to reach home through the offices of the Red Cross. "War is barbaric," MacNab muses, but he holds little ill will against his torturers since they were just doing their jobs. He does, however, dislike the Iraqis who seemed to enjoy inflicting pain, and if he met one of them on the street, he would probably slug him. At least I THINK that's what he thought. The working-class accents and the slang were so thick that I was unable to understand some of the exchanges.
MacNab is pretty philosophical about his experiences, and not at all chastened or brutalized. Naturally war is barbaric, but MacNab knew that going in, and he has no intention of giving up the profession of arms. He doesn't seem to have any real enemies, doesn't hate anybody, and surely isn't anxious to be captured and tortured again, but what the hell, the army has given him a chance to be all he can be!
In the usual war movie, our side almost always wins, sometimes at great sacrifice. Here, the conflict kind of peters out, as great historical events have a way of doing. That may or may not make for a satisfying narrative, but it does resemble life a little more closely.