BEFORE: From Bosnia in the mid-1990's to Iraq in 2003. And fortunately, Gabriel Macht from "Behind Enemy Lines" was in "The Good Shepherd" with Matt Damon (last seen in "Chasing Amy").
THE PLOT: Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region.
AFTER: This film represents something of a simpler time in our decade-long war, when we still believed that there were WMD's in Iraq that justified the U.S. invasion, and soldiers were keeping track of wanted Iraqis by assigning their pictures to playing cards.
This is not your typical Hollywood war film, since they tend to be very simple - U.S. soldiers are the good guys, and our enemies deserve to die. But there are so many different factions in U.S. occupied Iraq, in this film they're often at odds with each other. CIA vs. Pentagon, army vs. Special Forces - they've got different orders, different interests, and one faction may want a man dead, and another might need him alive.
It makes for a more complicated film, but I'm willing to believe that the Iraq situation, at that time, could easily have been so confusing. But would a ground-level soldier, even a commander, be so able to see the big picture regarding WMD's, and to be able to surmise that the U.S. had received faulty intelligence? Or is it easier to believe that a soldier would follow orders, do his job, not ruffle feathers, and be more concerned with keeping himself and his men alive?
The film has an exciting opening, an exciting climax, but it tended to drag a little bit in the middle. In the end, a message delivered by an Iraqi civilian proves that any U.S. action there, in our interest or theirs, constitutes interference. A lot to think about here.
Also starring Greg Kinnear (last seen in "Baby Mama"), Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "The Tailor of Panama"), Amy Ryan (last seen in "Changeling"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix")
RATING: 7 out of 10 Humvees
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