Code Name Geronimo

Seal Team Six is a 2008 American war film directed by the producer of The Hurt Locker, John Stockwell, inspired by actual events. John Stockwell (born on March 25, 1961) is an American actor, director, producer, writer and former model. It's a low-budget film which deals with the end of the infamous al-Qaeda head, Bin Laden, on May 2nd 2011. Moreover, it's a very short film which lasts only 90 minutes. After receiving orders of their superiors about the guarded compound in Pakistan, US intelligence have to dismantle the mission in a time limited. Very close to Zero Dark Thirty by Kathryn Bigelow, SEAL Team Six focuses on the truthfulness of the events and of the actions. It looks like a documentary which protects the X files of the government. The facts in the film were not "confirmed or denied" by White House officials. On the first hand, the script and direction are fairly matter-of-fact, even if there are lots of amazing shots of sunsets and landscapes), but on the other hand, there are lots of excellent performances as Connors, Ross Martin (as Mangus), Kamala Devi (as Teela), Pat Conway (as Captain William Maynard), and Adam West (as Delahay). These performances show why Geronimo is a success. The defects of the film are to avoid torture and to add fiction to reality. Yet, this film has lots of qualities as the final gunfight, the suspense, the moment of actions and the witch hunt against Bin Laden. We can also talk of the effects which engender the sense of danger and peril. They are no clear "bad guys" and "good guys" here. Rather, the conflicts of the film are portrayed as resulting from cultural dispositions, duty and necessity. Moreover, the film is visually amazing. The movie seems to be fascinating and full of new development but it has some little errors. It was nominated for the "Outstanding Art Direction For A Miniseries Or Movie" and for the "Outstanding Sound Editing For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special" in 2013. It was not the red-carpet premiere that John had in mind. Positive criticism: "Very interesting, I look first "Zero Dark Thirty" because it was a famous film by Kathryn Bigelow, and I personally think that "Code Name Geronimo" is better than it. The acting is amazing!" Negative criticism: "Fichtner, once again typecast as a stern authority figure, is arguably the best of a mediocre lot, but fails to ignite the film's plethora of arduous and poorly written scenes within US intelligence HQ. Similarly irksome is the grating contrivance that almost no member of this apparent 'crack team' of SEALs is able to keep their emotions in check for seemingly any longer than five minutes. Predictably, macho face-offs are in plentiful supply." To conclude, I personally think that this film is a human and subjective vision of the war by the soldiers who are constantly trapped between life and death. I prefer Seal Team Six because it is more realistic than Zero Dark Thirty which is too exaggerated.

It in painfully obvious that no part of the movie is shot in Pakistan. There's not even an effort to depict the actual landscape, people, language, dress, or culture of the area. Imagine a foreign film about New York City that shows cars with Texas license plates, and people with a southern drawl. Mix this with low budget graphics, shallow characters, and thoughtless bang bang, and you have a contender for the worst movie of the year. The seals in the movie are as real as in a video game. The actual mission of flying into OBL's compound, taking him out, and returning back to the base is filmed at high-school competence, and lacks suspense, drama and visuals that you would expect from a flick about this once-in-a-lifetime event. A total disaster.

Now that the dust of the recent presidential election has settled (and other information about the search for OBL has come to light), we can see this flick for what it really was--just a campaign tool for one side in the 2012 presidential campaign. Produced by Weinstein, one of the President's biggest boosters in the film industry. Lots of deeply serious and introspective Presidential commentary during the flick. But on numerous points we now know Weinstein simply fabricated as he went along. The film DOES paint a flattering portrait of seal training and the Skype videos with loved ones at home were moving; that's the reason the movie gets two stars instead of just one. Like the movie "JFK," this one does a disservice to history. Oh, well. These are interesting times we live in.

I don't usually write reviews but out of frustration,found this method relaxing. I was waiting for this movie eagerly. When I first learned about OBL killing I was so over joyed. I read every news article and watched every news discussion/program. I knew whole lot about the mission just because I took personal interest in this incident. But know I know that Producers/Directors/writers of this movie knew nothing about raid at all. I think all the elements in the movie about raid were taken from the news articles which broke the news to world. Very little was known then. It was a Net Geo movie, but it was not any way closet to their standards. Script was poor and the execution of that poor script was even more poorer. Mindless emotional and personal rivalry scenes. Now that there is a book which has first hand account of the incident (and I've read that) so found these scenes very irritating. This movie has nothing to do with the OBL raid. It was just a Pro-Obama election propaganda.

Just sat through it this evening and found the fast-forward very useful. In fact, I used the fast forward so much - that what I actually saw seemed pretty good. Granted, it may have only been 5 minutes…but those 5 minutes were almost spectacular. Of course, I had to fast-forward through the campaign commercial part of the movie. I think that was about a third…or maybe even a half. And the self-gratifying dialog, I had to jump through that, another fourth or third. The rigid bad-ass acting and there was a lot of that – I had to jump through that. Everybody was trying to out-bad-ass the previous person. (NOTE: why does everyone in a movie now-a-days toss out their 'acting?' skills and become the consummate bad-asses?) I can understand the Navy SEALs being that way…that is their job and they kind of get trained doing this. But a bunch of D.C. sycophants? Really? In any case, skipping through that probably ate up about a quarter of the movie. SO - what does that leave me with? Let me see. Opening credits (those were stunning). Blowing up the compound (more stunning stuff), and last but not least, the closing credits (just as stunning as the opening credits). In all fairness – I knew this movie was no more than a campaign commercial. And it was pumped out by some Hollywood boot lickers, and I have no problem with that. Support your guy – wonderful. The left panders to the left – and the right panders to the right…I got that. I just would have not paid for this. I may be wrong, but I don't think this was a portrayal of anything other than a campaign

Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden (2012) *** (out of 4) Made-for-TV docudrama taking a look at the Seal operation's twenty-two minute mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. The film starts off nearly a year earlier when the CIA comes across information of a possible hideout for the terrorist and then we follow the steps it took to take him down. SEAL TEAM SIX certainly isn't a masterpiece and there are all sorts of flaws in it but at the same time I think it gets the job done with a high entertainment factor. I think the film works best as pure entertainment because there's really a lack of drama or suspense that keeps it from being better. I'm not even certain how accurate everything is but this here doesn't matter too much because there's no question that the film grabs your attention right from the start and doesn't let it go. I think the best moments in the film are all the behind the scenes stuff where we get to see what was going on inside the CIA as they were trying to get the President to sign off on the operation. I enjoyed seeing this stuff as the CIA would have to discuss what proof they had that bin Laden was in this building as well as having to look at what would happen if they were wrong. The performances were all very good and one really couldn't ask for more. The flaws of the film include some very weak CGI effects at times as well as an annoying use of real photographs to try and build drama. Most of the photographs are of President Obama and having still frame photos in the movie just made the thing feel cheap and it certainly didn't add anything. We'll have to wait and see how the second, theatrical bin Laden movie will compare but while this one is flawed it's at least entertaining.

Before I get to my review I have to make a comment on the user reviews for this film. THis was an American success, not an Obama success.As such no one, save for the Seal Team and the CIA, can lay claim to the success of the mission. All Obama was give the okay. Yes, he deserves credit for taking the political risk, but the apparatus(Special Ops) strengthened under the Bush Administration is the reason this war carried out so effectively. Also, someone needs to tell the person from Bangladesh that he needs to pay more attention to what is going on in the world. The fact is that Moslem extremists are waging wars against the US, Israel, China, Russia, Indian, and Africans. These are not media-invented actions. These are tea-life fanatics perverting a great religion for their own designs. As for the movie. I thought it was taunt, bare knuckled thriller that was largely absent of the jingoistic we often see in such movies. 9-11 is referenced because it was the reason this mission was being undertaken. The actors, lead by William Fichtner, do an admirable job of portraying the professionals employed to eliminate OBL. While none are Oscar-worthy, they all do a solid job of expressing the emotions and strain those in the CIA and military had to be feeling during this operation. The film itself is well-made. The battle scenes are every bit the quality of what we see in 'Hurt Locker", the scenes in Pakistan have the look of Abottabad…realism is a 10 in this movie. One flaw of this move is that it overstates the impact of this operation to Obama's presidency. Obama's presidency would not have gone down in flames if this operation had failed. Clinton survived Mogadishu, JFK had the Bay of Pigs blow up in his face but he did not suffer long term damage from it and a failing economy more than the failed Operation Eagle Claw killed Carter's presidency. Obama could easily have survived politically if this mission failing. Those who hate this movie hate it because they are either anti-American or anti-Obama because cinematically-speaking this is a very good film.

With all the hype, I thought for certain this would be a strong 2 hours of television. Wrong. Little character development; less in depth behind the scenes; even the acting was bad. Without the actual footage of of September 11 and Pres. Obama, it would have been even worse. Then NatGeo filled the program with commercials and seemingly ran the same set of spots at each break. Just brutally bad. For contrast, go watch Showtime's Homeland. Indeed, this looked very much like a low budget, independent production filmed on a back-lot south of Los Angeles. I was truly looking for an engaging 'documentary-style' film. I am not quite sure what I saw tonight. And if you haven't seen it, don't. Go watch Swamp People or FashionPolice. I am sure they are better!