Hot on the heels of their successful miniseries ‘John Adams’, HBO gives us the best visual representation of the Iraq invasion yet with ‘Generation Kill.’ The series is an extremely gritty, affecting and entertaining seven-part mini based on Rolling Stone scribe Evan Wright’s first-person account of a Marine battalion.
Pushed forward by ‘The Wire’s’ David Simon and Ed Burns, they carry over that same rawness into dealing with Wright’s forthright account of the sometimes humorous, expectedly tragic days-in, days-out of a platoon of Marines in the first days of the war in 2003.
Not surprisingly, the focus on individual grunts is mostly sympathetic and heroic with the bumbling mistakes handed over to the easier targets of the officers in charge but there is still a distinct unflinching honesty on display.
Technically speaking, the production is outstanding with an epic-scope to the battles that will remind of such expertly-staged Hollywood efforts like ‘Black Hawk Down’. HBO seemed to spare no expense which is particularly commendable considering the almost-exclusive indifference to past projects dealing with the war regardless of star and budget stature i.e. ‘Body of Lies’ and ‘The Kingdom’.
A perfect format for the material, seven hour-long episodes lets the characters breathe and establish continuity without all the false sense of tension and filler that would invariably accompany a television series.
Faithfully recreating Wright’s book, the film is just as successful in its crude, rowdy banter between the mostly aimless (yet driven) First Recon unit of the Marines than it is when diving into expansive firefights and hoo-rah led battles. Individual characters are established well right off with the expected crassness, philosophical ramblings and drill sergeant yells that keep throughout.
Not so much concerned with a steady narrative but more a series of stop-and-start missions that seem haphazardly planned at best and passed down through the Lt. Col. ‘The Godfather’ (Chance Kelly) whose nickname derives from the raspy voice that he acquired from cancer (he didn’t smoke, he was “just lucky”), we see these ‘missions’ get filtered through a particular set of eyes be it the reckless if psychotically courageous Lance Cpl. Trombley (Billy Lush) to the patient, respected Sgt. Brad ‘Iceman’ Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard).
While not quite as ambitious in scope as HBO’s ‘Band of Brothers’, their WWII effort championed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, ‘Generation Kill’ is just as effective in presenting the realities and specifics of war, this time buried under a mass of political, domestic and bureaucratic confusion and questioning.
I can’t think of a higher complement to pay than to say that when it all ended, I left wanting more, which goes against my usual regard for television - i.e. content that outstays its welcome.
The seven episodes are presented with a 1.78:1 1080p AVC encode that look good in high-def and are appropriate to the content. There’s an expected amount of grain and murkiness to the black levels (a lot of exterior night shots) that probably could have been cleaned up a bit but the wide-open expanses of the Iraqi desert (actually Africa) look detailed and deep.
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is cracking with explosions, bullets, and dialogue both fore and off-screen. There’s no music which allows everything else to become that much richer.
Special features include audio commentaries for six of the seven parts with varying combinations of cast and crew that are mostly entertaining if a bit slow here and there. ‘Generation Kill: A Conversation with 1st Recon marines’ is a twenty-minute convo with the real Evan Wright who moderates a conversation between several of the real Marines represented in his book and the eventual miniseries. Certainly insightful, it’s cool to see the real peeps and to discover that ‘Fruity Rudy’ actually played himself.
‘Making Generation Kill’ is a half-hour typical featurette with interviews and Behind-the-scenes but still fascinating due to the subject matter. ‘Eric Ladin’s Video Diaries’ is a half-hour assemblage of home movies captured by actor Ladin who was Cpl. James Chaffin in the series. Some fun stuff here if a bit too long. ‘Deleted Dialogues’ are deleted scenes without video which is kind of curious – possibly meant to play against the credits as all the episodes had short monologues at the end.
Exclusive to the Blu-ray is a really cool interactive ‘Basic Training’ feature that allows users pop-up information windows for mission maps, chain-of-command charts and a military glossary. These actually come in really handy and fill out any info gaps that you didn’t pick up or wanted elaboration on. Cool stuff.
At times funny, thrilling, depressing, perplexing and reflective, for anyone intrigued by neither a left or right-wing leaning take on the Iraq war, ‘Generation Kill’ can’t come with a higher recommendation.
Generation Kill [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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