NavComm said:
I found it a bit too much Full Metal Jacket at the beginning. The 'this is my rifle' has already been done and yet it played significantly in a few major scenes in this movie.
Yes it has already been done in an other movie but this movie is about one Marine's experience in the Corps and guess what...it's still part of every Marine's experience in the Corps. Although it may seem to be a Hollywood cliche for modern day Marine Corps movies, the Creed of the United States Marine is very much alive and well in the actual Corps and since this movie is about the Corps, thus it is included.
To support this claim, I'll give an example. I am a PMI (primary marksmanship instructor) and when we conduct sustainment training for Marines going to the rifle range, we need to teach classes on the shooting book. This is a little green book in which we record our shots when qualifying on the rifle range. Every Marine is issued one for each annual qualification on the range. Inside the front cover is printed "My Rifle" the Creed of the United States Marines by Major General W. H. Rupertus. When we start the shooting book class, the first thing we do is have a motivator stand up and read the Creed after which the rest of the Marines present respond with a motivated oorah. This is not a Hollywood cliche, but real life. It's part of the fabric of the Marine Corps culture. To say that it's been done in other movies is to dismiss it as an unimportant cultural fact. It was repeatedly used in the movie because as Marines it is burned into our collective consciousness.
I also think they took license with just about every horror story you've heard about soldiers in the field (the corpse as a trophy, the training related death, the sexual antics) and put it all in to this one marine's experience.
I dissagree. From both my own experience and speaking with the Marines in my shop who have been to combat in Iraq, these things do happen and are not necessarily isolated incidents. The Marines in my shop have seen these kinds of things take place in their units while on deployment and in training.
Training related deaths still take place today. Live fire accidents do take place during training and anyone who says it isn't so is seeing the world through rose colored glasses. During every quarter, there is one death at both boot camps. This stuff happens. If the recruit doesn't drown during swim qual, then he has a heart attack and dies or there is a weapons accident. As an instructor on the range, I don't wear a loaded 9mm pistol because I think it's cool. As for training accidents at subsequent fleet training courses, if the Marine fails to obey safety regulations, then he can potentially get hurt. After saying all of this, it doesn't mean that the Marine Corps does not take every precaution to avoid accidents because we do. We can't water down the training to the point of making it inneffective. There are some risk factors in every training evolution and sometimes the risks are higher than others.
Another thing to consider is the fact that these guys are scout snipers. Scout sniper school is not an easy school to go through and the training is intense and realistic.
Other points in the movie such as the wall of shame, the porn flick of your wife with the neighbour and the constant worry of your girlfriend running off with someone else is also a reality. As for the sexual antics, that's just part of having a bunch of guys with high testosterone levels blwoing off some steam due to bordom in the desert for months on end.
One of my best friends came back from Iraq last year and has attested to all of the events portrayed in this movie. The part that shows the motars coming in and Swofford standing there in amazement watching is also factual. During training, you don't get barraged by motar fire but when some Marines see it for the first time, they are mesmorized by it and don't always react as they should. This is stuff that happens.
I give it two thumbs down.
I guess you are giving the whole Marine Corps experience two thumbs down because everything in this movie is the real deal.