The Hornet's Nest

Could have done without the contrived father/son drama at the start of the film, it was so bad I almost stopped watching it. Luckily I kept on watching it, it really picked up steam in the second half when the film was devoted to the 101st in operation strong eagle III. It really highlighted the sacrifice of the soldiers and their willingness to give all.

I was a civilian contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, the losses and ceremonies commemorating them were always sad. The professionalism of the US troops, despite the politics and questionable nature of the Iraq War always made me proud.

As most pointed out...the first half of this was horrible...however if you can get to the final 30-40 minutes...it's increible. The final 2-5 minutes are absolutely heart shattering...

I can't bring myself to give it less than 8/10...only because the men highlighted here who gave their lives may never get another chance to be seen/known. We all need to take that into account, if this is the only time we get to see their story...it deserves to be seen, and if we crush the rating to less than 6.0...that's going to be extremely low for a documentary, and guess what?? People will skip it...

So 10/10 for those brave soldiers...and 0/10 for the man attempting to make their glory his and his sons!!! Shame on him. Those men deserved the FULL time to be known!!!! They could've spent that time early on telling us about these young men we lost...no one cares about you and your sons relationship, pal!!!

The wars our soldiers have endured in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the best possible understanding by an informed citizenry. This documentary is about as close to being shot in combat as you will get to see. Take off your political hat and just watch and listen to the bullets fly past. Men are killed in this documentary (though you don't get to see the incident). Men die because they can't be rescued in time. You get to see heart break their friends, sergeants and officers feel at the loss. I also recommend you read/listen to "The Good Soldiers" by David Filkens about our troops in Iraq. If you do all that--then you can really say the words: "Thank you for your service!"

Can't believe the stupidity in these reviews. Giving a bad review because you don't understand or recognize the basic subject matter of the documentary? Smdh. You people are a disgrace to Americans. No wonder the world thinks we're idiots. You people do all you can to prove we are. Smfh.

Before starting, the movie was more-so a documentary on the journalist than it was the soldiers. It seemed the soldiers were sidelined the whole time and more of a side story for the journalists. Unlike Restrepo, the movie was pitched from the journalist's (Mike and Carlos Boetcher) point of view and mainly from Mike's point of view as the father. It isn't until the last 15 minutes of the movie that they seem to care at all about the soldiers, finally having interviews with them on their combat actions and their opinions, which even then seemed more like a 30 second piece than the reason for the movie.

The first major thing watching the movie to bug me, however, was that they felt the need to add a vast amount of sound effects. From added gun noises, to yelling, to bullet sounds, they would frequently place these added effects over the combat footage as if that combat (real combat) wasn't exciting enough. Being an Afghan War Veteran myself, I felt this was kind of a jab, to say that the soldier's actual stories and actual combat was not worthy of Hollywood. After also watching movies such as Restrepo, I feel this was completely unnecessary.

Those things aside, the movie wasn't awful. I do feel it should have been more about the actual soldiers and the war rather than Mike. I found it rather ironic as well that with him taking so much of the movie to direct to himself and his son, and take away from the soldiers, that he later goes on to say that he was trying to tell their stories.

Overall, for a civilian the movie will hopefully paint a slightly better picture on the war, and it was still done quite well. I just have my feelings on the side due to my past experiences.