msbull

I lived in Israel in the eighties so I was interested to see if this film was realistic or a bit of soft propaganda. This opinion is based on what I used to see every day on the streets as, not being either Jewish or Israeli, I never had to do the military service myself. But I found the film very realistic and very enjoyable. Being pushed into assertive and sometimes aggressive roles and having to overcome the natural hesitation and shyness prominent in the majority of 18 - 20 year old girls is not a simple task. I thought the actors were totally at ease and natural in their roles. Perhaps they were just playing themselves and reliving their own experiences. I smiled at many of the things I remembered. The messy hair, the giggling, the smoking and eating in the streets. Sometimes you had the impression that they were schoolgirls in uniform and not soldiers. I think all this comes across in the film as does their reluctance at having to be there in the first place. It's a very good film.

I was really looking forward to watching this film. It had all the ingredients of a great tongue in cheeker, but it just didn't come together AT ALL. Kevin Spacey's accent was tolerable except that sometimes he forgot to use it and I would rather NOT have had to listen to Linda Fiorentino's pale attempt. She and Helen Baxendale were totally lacking in charm and personality, thankfully their screen kids had loads, so you could find at least some members of his 2 families endearing. You could have strained spaghetti with the plot and I'm sure that the script was written by some adolescent schoolboy in a high school English competition. That said, when I wasn't cringing, I was smirking so it wasn't a totally wasted 90 minutes. I did find the superimposing of Kevin's face on the painting very clever and quite funny. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh but I was expecting a bit of quality viewing and it just never came.