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I saw this yesterday
Lot of people in my screening because Tuesday is 2 for 1 w/ATT pass or $5 each (discounted price) if you are AMC perks member so not necessarily because of the quality of the movie
I thought it was more like a made-for-tv film and a pretty poor effort at that
If you want to see a movie that used real characters (non-professional actors) and got exceptional results watch "The Best Years of Our Lives" 1946---
Harold Russell who played a sailor from WWII, a double amputee (his hands), returning home and trying to salvage his future and find happiness was excellent---
He was nominated and won Oscar for Best Supporting Actor--one of only two nonprofessional actors to have done that...and he does a good job--
No question that any of the guys in 15:17 is getting a nomination...
We thought the better actor of the 3 was Alek Skarlatos but maybe that is because he is not the real focus--Stone obviously is...
Eastwood might have had a purpose in mind (I have read some reviews that give him credit for trying to show how the Hero can come from Everyman given the right clay and circumstances...but he needed a way better script and frankly needed to be a better director to get that out of his actors...
The editing was harmful to the overall quality of the film (what little there was)
The jumps from the shots of the terrorist and then the childhoods of the boys was poorly done
The time wasted on innocuous, boring travel clips of their time visiting Europe only showed me they were friendly guys but that was about all...it was filler w/o a purpose...
Not lot of "there" there ---
even the clip of Stone's comment about being pushed toward a purposes sounded pretty heavy handed...
Maybe he did believe that--he seemed religious---
but there were people in my screening who laughed when after the attack, he was keeping the wounded man alive by holding his carotid artery closed and asked him if he wanted to say a prayer and the guy declined w/haste...
So there WAS lot of honesty in including parts that likely were going to work against the "heroic" nature of their actions...
And really why did they choose to go to the ceremony and receive a Legion of Honor in wrinkled golf shirts and khakis??? Where was the American Embassy ---couldn't they have given those guys some help? Anthony Sadler's parents looked like they knew what was appropriate dress... I would have LOVED to have gotten first-hand insight into why they chose to go to that ceremony looking that casual...
The idea that Stone would join the military based on a throw-away comment from a Marine recruiter that he would have probably gone into air/sea rescue if he had a second chance just showed (to me) a young man who was not very introspective (or bright) and didn't understand the dichotomy of loving war and wanting to help people---those things really only go together in a recruitment ad...
The fact that he lacked depth perception which meant he never would qualify for that air rescue job was also something I think would have come up at any routine eye exam---and public schools do those periodically--maybe not church schools...
I think I even had something like that when I took my driver's test, checking for vision quality...
The music in this also bothered me--sounded like lot of other Eastwood movies and didn't seem to fit parts of the narrative at times...so don't know if it was just recycled or Eastwood didn't care...
I don't think we got any in-depth insight about character of any of these guys---
Anthony Sadler gets short shift about what his personal decisions were based on...
The highlight of Alek Skarlatos's time in Afghanistan was apparently his forgetting his military backpack in an Afghan village and his 3 vehicle convoy having to return to get it (not good military strategy)... So not even lot of situational awareness going on there with him...
The one aspect I thought was interesting was the scene when Stone was at Lackland and there was an alert about active shooter--he went to the door w/a Bic pen (against the order of the female officer leading the medical class) in some misguided impulse to protect the others in the room. This same heroic impulse was what saved the people on the train--
and in both cases he was just lucky---no active shooter was really on THEIR Lackland facility and the gun jammed on the train so he wasn't shot before he grappled w/the shooter...
Yes---he took a terrible wound from the knife and could have been killed with that---
So there was HUGE risk in doing what he did....
And yes he was brave but WHY??? What really motivated that risk-taking?
What pushed him to cross from Everyman to Hero???
Eastwood does not answer that---and I don't think Stone himself has the capacity for personal insight to answer it either...
Just got back from watching the movie, and I liked it a lot.
Yes, some will think it is 'filler,' but let's face it, there isn't much you can do to make a movie about a terrorist attack where the attack only took maybe 5 minutes tops, without adding in other elements to stretch it out to a conventional movie running time. Most importantly, the movie was based on the book 15:17 to Paris, and the book also went into the three American's backgrounds, etc.
I thought the three real life people were excellent in their screen acting debuts. All of them had a natural charisma for the camera that shone through, without any artificiality you would expect from rookie actors (I thought Anthony Sadler was really funny). The young actors who played them as kids were also great. I wasn't bored at all and found all of the background story to be funny and compelling. Plus it was nice to see some of the sights in Italy, as I desire to go there later this year.
The attack itself happened suddenly and I thought the movie did a great job capturing the intensity of what happened in that brief moment of time. And a rarity for Hollywood (and especially Eastwood sometimes, especially his craptastic American Sniper), pretty much the entire movie was based on fact as it was based on what people on the train experienced (three other people that were involved on that train also played themselves in the movie).
I will give those guys credit--and Stone especially--not just for his attack on the shooter but for keeping the wounded Brit alive in very precarious situation until the EMT crew arrived---
And then he was very specific about HOW they should transfer control of the wounded man...
He had already bled out a lot and if that transfer was botched he likely would have died...
Stone had lot of self control and skill since he himself was wounded pretty severly at the time
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