The Pentagon Wars
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Movie Reviews of The Pentagon Wars
Movie Review: Funny, Entertaining and Great Acting!
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this movie when it first aired on HBO and I bought it recently because I am a Richard Schiff fan. This movie tells the tale of a military colonel (Cary Elwes) who is put in charge of a Pentagon project to build a new tank. Elwes is the most recent in a long line of men who have overseen this boondoggle since 1968. Kelsey Grammar plays the General who just wants the damn thing built despite any problems that it may have. He forces his underlings to falsify test results and even tries to get Elwes fired. Schiff, who has a fair amount of screen time, plays the original project director who never fought against the big guns, but still opposes the tank because of its design flaws. He helps Elwes get to the truth. Lots of fun!Movie Review: I'm still surprised.
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time I watched this movie my jaw dropped open due to the way Maj Gen Partrige was protrayed and it still surprises me that a man in that position would refuse to allow a test that would tell them whether or not American soldiers would be killed in it. When those tests were carried out, they would be completely unreveiling as all the tests were so blatently tampered with. I myself was in the Army though my job made it unlikely that I would ever go into a combat situation with one the smallchance was still there. I am glad that Lt. Col. Burton did all he did to get the testing that the American taxpayer spent 14 billion (that's with a B) dollars to get. I did, through my tenure in the Army, get to meet with soldiers who would be inside that thing. As a matter of fact some of them might be in Afghanistan now. Thank you Col. Burton, I salute you.Movie Review: Insanely funny
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie should be on everyones list. It is simply amazing how this could be based on actual events in the pentagon. They tried to skip most of the borring details and leave you either laughing at the generals' stupidity or with your jaw on the floor from the officeral idiocy!Movie Review: An absurd look at DOD weapons development
Summary: 5 Stars
"Believe it or not, it actually happened" is what the opening title card reads: the US Army spent $14 billion over 16 years redesigning the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle from a simple APC into "a troop carrier that can't carry troops, a reconnaisance vehicle that's too conspicuous to perform reconaissance, and a quasi-tank with less armor than a snowblower but has enough firepower to take out half of downtown Washington." I had once played around on one at the 1989 National Scout Jamboree and had no idea that the thing had originally been a deathtrap that very few people in the Defense Department would speak out against because of military discipline and an overemphasis on being team players. However, this shocking look at what American tax money ends up paying for because of flag officer ignorance, junior officer ambition and defense contractor greed is offset with absurd, possibly-fictional humor: Lt. Col. Jim Burton, the Air Force officer who blew the whistle on it all, wants to prove the ineffective aluminum armor will produce poison gas by putting sheep in the Bradley when he fires a real antitank missile at it, but the cronies of Maj. Gen. Partridge sabotage him by requiring "sheep specs" and creating the Office of Ruminant Procurement to decide what kind of sheep to use. It's an excellent "truth is stranger than fiction" fact-based comedy.Movie Review: Hilarious but soberly outrageous--often simultaneously
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was a real surprise. I rented it on vacation when neither my son, my wife, nor myself could agree. I just saw that Olympia Dukakis and Richard Benjamin were in it and he directed. And, it was a comedy.But this film is the blackest of comedies. And the very scenes that were the most hilarious were also those that engendered outrage in me, gradually at first, and then with a rushing forward.
It is the true story of the latter stages of development of the Bradley armoured vehicle which was featured in the Gulf War, and the Air Force officer, James Burton, whose task, by Congressional edict, was to sign off on the final testing of the vehicle. Without his approval the Bradley could not go into production.
The film is based on his book.
What he discovered was that the Bradley's design had evolved from a fast troop transport to a mish-mash of everything, making it unsuitable for each of its now numerous and contradictory roles.
Worse, however, was that the vehicle was an obvious death trap. If the paper-thin armour didn't get you, then the poisonous fumes would. And if they didn't do it, then the exploding of the vehicle's gas tank would finish off the job.
The army would not test the vehicle, except for those that they rigged--knowing full well what the results would be. Israel bought some, but seeing right off the bat that the vehicle as designed was a death trap, insisted on modifications.
So, there were two production lines: one for the Israeli version and one for the death trap US version: produced by its own country with the knowing enthusiasm and approval of military brass.
Contractor production of sub-standard military equipment is a very old story. Nothing new here. But what infuriated the officer was that here was the US Military knowingly trying to push through a vehicle that was an obvious tomb for American soldiers.
Well, this sounds (and is) pretty grim. But the film is played primarily as comedy. Obviously very black comedy, but still comedy.
The general and leader of the project is Kelsey Grammar. The questioning Congressional chairperson is Olympia Dukakis, and Richard Benjamin is Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's secretary of defense. He's always finding out the bad news from the morning's Washington Post since all his military people are just blandly reassuring him that it's all proceeding grandly: not a single glitch in the project.
The light tone and jaunty pace keep the film moving along. The villains not quite verge on buffoonery. Grammer is obviously completely disdainful of the Congress people and their questioning, yet reining it in so he can (almost) appear to take them seriously, so they'll go away.
I would have prefered it if Grammer had been more restrained and a bit more subtle about it. The generals we see at hearings on TV are much more straight-faced. But perhaps it wouldn't have been possible to keep the tone of the film nor to exhibit their disdain nor to make plausible the supposedly true incidents, each new one more ludicrous and implausible than the one before.
As the film ended I was very upset. I'm not at all hawkish in my politics. But I do believe that when we commit Americans to fight that they should have equipment that serves them the best. I was laughing as the film proceeded as one outrageous and hilarous incident succeeded another. I did want to know whether the "Office of Ruminant Procurement" really did come into existence or was it Hollywood taking liberties with the text.
As with Colonel Burton, though, the knowledge that US brass would push enthusiastically for a death trap vehicle is a bit much for me.