The Tillman Story (***1/4)

These fact are known about Pat Tillman: One, that the NFL safety turned US Army private died on April 22, 2004, in Afghanistan, in what was at first widely reported as a heroic act, in the face of enemy fire, for which Tillman was given a Silver Star. Second, that, as revealed to the public about a month later, Tillman had in fact died in a friendly fire incident, shot by troops from his own platoon. The discrepancy between what was reported and what occurred, and the efforts of Tillman’s family to find out why, is the subject of Amir Bar-Lev’s (My Kid Could Paint That) documentary, which follows by about a year Jon Krakauer’s book on the same subject.

Charles Spurgeon’s adage, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on,” seems particularly apt here, when the boots in question are army boots. Coincidentally, Tillman had been involved, peripherally, in an similar episode in Iraq, where he had served his first tour of duty. There, he was part of the unit sent to rescue the captured Jessica Lynch, a mission that was, as he wrote in his journal, a “ big Public Relations stunt.” Lynch herself would confirm that she had not, in fact, shot at the enemy, nor was she in the kind of danger that the public would be told.

Tillman’s reaction to this underscores his independence of thought and the contradictions of a man who both opposed the Iraq War and felt compelled to fight it, who became a bigger celebrity by volunteering for the military, and a bigger one still by dying, yet refused interviews and shunned that role. It is the character of Pat Tillman and his family—his two brothers, one of whom fought with him, his parents, and even his wife, the only girl he ever dated—that elevates this documentary. All of them are interviewed on camera, and the story of the movie is largely of the indefatigable efforts of his mother, especially, and his father to learn what happened.

Bar-Lev focuses narrowly. He does not place this in the larger context of the Bush administration’s efforts to boost support for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or of military propaganda of the past. Krakauer gets more political, crediting the Tillman story with a temporary boost in public support for the war going into the 2004 election season. He is also more noticeably critical of the role of General Stanley McChrystal, later to become the commander of all forces in Afghanistan. It was McChrystal whose name was on the paperwork for Tillman’s unearned Silver Star, as the film shows. The implication of both the book and the film is that McChrystal would not have blatantly violated the rules without the knowledge and approval of higher-ups such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Besides the military, the media come in for some criticism. The inclusion of footage of Ann Coulter acting incredulous at being told of Tillman’s antiwar sentiments is almost too obvious. But possibly the public deserves a good deal of criticism too, for it is our need for heroes and apparent willingness to be persuaded by celebrities that encourages such myth-making.

The film’s biggest flaw is an unavoidable one. Because it cannot answer the central question it asks—who, ultimately, was responsible for covering up what happened, and why—the film is ultimately frustrating. But it is valuable.

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viewed 9/1/10 at Rave UPenn and reviewed 9/2–5/10

Men Who Stare at Goats (**1/2)

Many people now know of the US Army’s secret experiments with LSD, CIA testing of “brainwashing” techniques, or even the military’s use of a Chinese manual designed to elicit false confessions as a basis for its “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Yet they may not know about its attempts to train recruits in the art of “remote viewing,” by which which they could, supposedly, use only the power of their minds to see faraway things, or even, as the title suggests, to kill goats.

Playing a reporter who accidentally stumbles upon this story, Ewan McGregor is the audience surrogate for learning about this odd use of taxpayer funds. The reporter is called Bob Wilton, presumably based on Jon Ronson, who wrote the book on which the movie is based. Little in this movie suggests that “Bob” is capable of writing a book, but the early scene in which he interviews one of the participants in these experiments has just the right tone of curious incredulity that’s called for. Cut to a few years later, and cuckolded Bob has fled to Iraq to convince himself and his soon-to-be ex of his manhood. From this point at which Bob coincidentally wanders into former operative Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), the narrative gets goofier and less convincing. Clooney himself does a pretty good job as one who has managed to get by in life by fervently believing in his own special abilities in the absence of any proof.

This comedy follows in the steps of movies like Charlie Wilson’s War or The Informant! in finding the absurdity in a serious, true story. Of course, in this case the absurdity is right on the surface, and probably the movie would have done well to underplay it a little rather than make almost every scene seem like a lark and every character a kook. The film briefly resembles Ishtar as Bob and Lyn go wandering in the desert on a mission that’s not entirely clear, but provides an excuse for buddy-comedy mishaps. Flashbacks are supposed to provide the backstory on all of the paranormal military stuff, but mostly bring in an assortment of odd characters, most notably the unlikely miliary man/new-age guru played by Jeff Bridges, a cousin to his Big Lebowski character.

It’s all sort of amusing, but never as funny as you might think, or even as informative as those other movies manage to be at the same time as being funny. As Bob goes from skeptic to sort-of believer in these strange folks, it seems as if we are supposed to both laugh at and celebrate them in their bizarre efforts to make war through peaceful means. But you don’t have to have read Ronson’s book to know that the movie has taken too many narrative shortcuts and left out too much for the movie to come off as anything but quirky fluff.

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viewed 11/18/09 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 11/19/09 and 11/23/09

In the Valley of Elah (***1/2)

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