What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this film is unsparing in the violence of the battlefield, with soldiers, civilians, mothers, and children dying in gunfire and RPG attacks. Several special-effects scenes actually go within a human body to demonstrate, classroom-lecture style, the damage that bullets do. There is also one rather gratuitous sex scene early on. The depiction of the coalition troops sent to liberate Kuwait is cynical, to put it lightly. Families who are strong Bush Jr./Sr. supporters will either yell at the screen, decide George Clooney isn't all that handsome anymore, or turn it off. Other families may cheer at the film's brazenness.
- Families can talk about the film's politics and the way the main characters turn from glorified looters into humanitarians. While Saddam Hussein is never discussed as more than a despicable warlord (hated and feared by even his own legions), it's stated that the Iraqi people, on both sides, are ordinary people involved in a complicated struggle for power and survival that most Americans -- with mainly money and oil on their minds -- can't/won't/don't comprehend. The filmmakers find fault with the George Bush government for not supporting the anti-Saddam resistance in 1991. Families in Bush-supporting households can debate whether this is a fair charge or not, especially considering that another President Bush invaded the country to charge wholesale after Saddam ten years later. Why wasn't George Clooney cheering then?