Be Excellent To Each Other

Generation Kill - Review

It takes a while to realise it, but Generation Kill isn't for us, it really isn't. It's a show that's willfully ignorant of the demands of the television watching population, contemptuous of bleeting pleas of "What does Oscar Mike mean?" and "What's glossing a round?" and "Who's he? They all look the same!" To explain, even if the show could do so without any pandering or dumbing down, would be cripple the hyper-reality of Generation Kill. Basically it was made for those in the armed forces to watch, with viewers from the rest of the world being merely a happy bonus that would hopefully be an incentive for the networks to renew the show. David Simon and Ed Burns don't care about what we think about it, they only care about the thoughts of the people that form the world they portray. Much like The Wire was made specifically about and only for Baltimore, and initially so dense and unforgiving and unique that the Emmy's have shockingly shunned it each and every time. Which will probably be the fate of Generation Kill.



They were scared and there was nothing they could do, when that frisbee landed in Old Man Crother's yard, there was no getting it back.

So what do we have? A bunch of X-Box and Playstation reared young men who are itching to get about their jobs, and who show frustration when they are held back. Theirs is a world of brotherhood manifested in racist jokes, taunts and foul language - and yet it's all mutual and part of managing each other's company without going insane. They'd clearly risk their own lives to pull their comrade out of harm's way, and despite all the invective flying around it's only one character with something of the white trash about him who stands genuinely offensive. Their reaction is the same towards the Iraqi's, an odd mix of pity, amusement, tourist fascination and contempt - with a heavy blanket of itching to 'kick some ass' in shooting up those who happily oblige in shooting at them. It's this lack of resistence that annoys and frustrates, but not as much as the vagueness, incompetence and shirking of responsibility that goes on up the command chain. As ever in a David Simon and Ed Burns production, it's not the cinematic filthy corruption and injustice or the "teh tragedy" uncaring incompetence that they're interested in showing, but the laziness and compromise and plain ignorance that permeates all structures of working life, including the army. Batteries are not delivered, maps are lost, objectives are vague and most anger-inducing of all is the shifting of the rules of engagement and the hiding behind of wording and legal quibbles by men in an attempt to cover themselves. A legal quibble for convenience sake that leads to surrendered Iraqi soldiers being doomed to be killed and the real villains ignored. It's a casual, shoulder-shrugging decision that shocks the men and the viewer and forbodes a future of fatal compromises and ethical shirking.



"I'm sorry bro's, but until we get this dance routine sorted, we're not going nowhere in 'Marines Got Talent'."

From a technical standpoint it's an amazing production, though a notch below Steve Bocho's hyped but somewhat soapy, obvious and false 'Over There' on the same subject. The realism is nigh on perfect, with Sgt. Colbert actually played by the real Colbert himself, who with other young veterans of the war advised the look of the production and kept it more authentic than it would from a nostalgic, 'professional Hollywood' war veteran who compromises realism for action fun. Nope, it's pure realism even at the expense of being obtuse and confusing. What you see is what they got. It also rides on Evan Wright's book, and a lot of the dialogue is ripped from it. Another surprise lays in the director, BBC's director of Jane Eyre Susanna White, who keeps the men in check for the production and a confusing world clarified. Yup, the look, the sound is impeccable. And if the world is a maelstrom of jargon, it has the smarts to keep a few characters front and centre to anchor us, such as Ray Pearson (played by the chap who did the gloriously irresponsible Ziggy in The Wire) the theorising, caffine fueled theorist, or 'Captain America', the officer obsessed with moustache size and an almost hysterically deluded into thinking that they're rolling into a firestorm of casualties and outmoded tanks shredding their humvees.

There's fun to be had. It's a dark, messy, stupid, funny world - and a more po-faced polemical approach such as an Oliver Stone effort would have denied this, and again missed the point. This is life, just in a different setting with a different job - the people, well they're no different - they've just been sculpted by their world into a different shape and way of thinking. Is Generation Kill the best Iraq/Afghanistan drama thus far? Certainly. Is it the best war drama on TV thus far? Well, Band of Brothers is a different beast and ultimately more entertaining, if bathed in reverence for 'the greatest generation'. At the other end of the spectrum, the savage, shocking and truthful BBC film 'The Warriors', made in 1999 about Liverudian peacekeepers in Bosnia has a heftier punch and is more searing, but again is a little removed by the message pushing the depiction to a narrowed focus of conflict, genocide and gross injustice that lacks the basic human element of life for the soldier.

My advice? Prescribe yourself all three in this order - Generation Kill for the true picture, Warriors for the anger and the horror and lastly Band of Brothers, to cheer yourself up and remind one self of how - ironically when war becomes total - if villainy and horror is uncompromised then at least so is the heroism and familiarity in the 'people's army' of conscription.

Nine out of Ten

We need a Film section on the site, mainly just for NervousBarry's movie critiques.

great write up. I'm watching this on FX on sky, so I've only seen two episodes so far. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Yeah I loved it. I enjoyed the way they, at times mischievously, avoid clichés. There are so many scenes where despite every war film for the last twenty years having trained your film watching brain to expect one of our heroes to "unexpectedly" get shot nothing happens, an incongruous wide shot things like that. It served really well to portray the reality of the invasion which was that for most of them, most of the time nothing much did happen.

Plus, "Godfather" is the greatest character nickname in the history of television. It's so great that he has to keep referring to himself in the third person.

Excellent review. Really makes me want to watch this.

I loved the radio chatter over the end credits of each episode, brilliant.

Sounds good. Cheers Pete!

It is splendid. I've only watched the first couple of episodes as well but it is compelling. Not understanding most of the jargon is not a barrier to enjoying it and assume much like the wire you absorb much of the dialogue by some form of osmosis and by the later episodes / second viewing you are completely conversant with US Marine Corps lingo.

Ooh, tah for the nice words guys. Yeah, I've only seen the first episode so far, but I thought it was a blinder. I think I'll work at this review a bit more and I have to say I wouldn't be averse to my own lil'l film section - as I do see an awful lot of new releases. Conversely, I rarely buy games, and mostly budget ones at that.

I dreamt about Generation Kill extensively after watching it, which is usually a sign of a good show. I did the same after watching the pilot of BSG, The Wire and Captain Star.