Pássaros Amarelos

Yellow Birds was a flawed movie from start to finish. Despite the story being interesting and the quality of production being above average, this was an easily forgettable war movie. To start, it was exceptionally slow to start picking up, which is never a good sign (especially when the movie is so short). We never saw their friendship grow or really any character development occur. We were never provided with a clear reason as to why they decided to hid that truth and cover it up. And we have no idea how it was found out that they did that. Just loads of missing information throughout. Not a fan.

This movie is hard to watch for anyone prior service. Every five seconds I was pointing out a variety of errors. I have seen some ate up movies but this one ranks up at the top. It's like you took a chapter out of Army Wives. Hollywood people, please take note; you embarrass real Soldiers when you create movies like this one. Not to mention, our wives have to hear us point out every blunder. Hire some advisors so you don't make the US Army look like chewed bubblegum. A little research would have been helpful. Use the correct uniforms, buckle that chin strap, take your hands out of your pockets and never call an NCO sir!

The mechanics of this movie were good, the quality of the movie was good, the acting itself was just OK but a little bit lacking, for that it barely scratches a 5 for me. First let's get a pure aesthetic thing out of the way. If you are going to make a war film, get the actual equipment right. The U.S. Army uses Blackhawk helicopters and have for quite awhile now. Go to the military's public affairs office, find their office that works with Hollywood and the film industry and arrange for some Blackhawks not Huey's. The movie comes off as high quality enough to take that step. Oh, and you are not going to have those gun truck, Humvees with turrets, supporting you without someone in the hatch with some fire power.

Now. The acting here was just OK, not great, maybe good. The scenes though and the whole plot reveal at the end...it is just hogwash. Plain and simple. This is not how soldiers behave and not what I (as a veteran) can tell you, would even be imaginable. The platoon/ company/ chain of command dynamic is completely absent. The squad dynamic is altogether wrong, and those are huge plot holes. The writer has only a small vague understanding of how men and women in our armed forces behave, and interact with each other and how military operations work. I am trying not to give away any spoilers but the incident in the film is something that would be a million to one shot of happening in real life, and the way the follow on was carried out would have even longer odds. That doesn't even get to the odds that soldiers would think in this way, let alone carry out. Frankly, I can't even imagine a scenario where anything like this could actually even be conceived or even began to be carried out without hitting immediate large roadblocks that would cease it immediately in today's military. Again I can give it a 5 on some of it's cinematic merits but ultimately it doesn't overcome huge realistic obstacles. I don't believe it has any political/ideological objectives as far as being pro or anti-war. If it did it fails on that but I'm hoping that there wasn't one. Mostly this just suffers from a real lack of realism which draws in a lack of real connection and feeling. If they changed it into a more entertaining action movie that might make it more passable, but for the drama they were trying to portray it was overall lacking.

This film tells the story of two young soldiers and their mothers, who are devastated by the war in different ways.

It is a powerful anti war film, even though most of the time there is no blood and gore. The psychological effects of war on the soldiers and the families are profound, and the film portrays the feelings effectively. I'm also very glad to see two very famous actresses in this film.

Take Full Metal Jacket, The Hurt Locker, a Six-Pack of Beer and some Hot Moms-Put It In A Blender and Run It On High

Although the concept of the main story might be original, it is lost within the inspirations of other films portrayed here.

The casting of Jennifer Aniston, Jason Patric, Toni Collette and Lee Tergesen is a complete waste of their talents as The Yellow Birds does not carry enough impact to warrant their inclusion. The film spends the majority of it's focus dealing with the effect upon the character Brandon Bartle, leaving all other characters insignificant to the main story.

The Yellow Birds strikes me as one of those 'first time' films, which is close as this is the second full length film directed by Alexandre Moors. What I see as another issue that convoluted the story is The Yellow Birds was burdened by thirty-five producers -that's 35 for you numbers folk.

Skip this film or save it for after you've binged everything else on Netflix.