Generation Kill (2008)

The creator of The Wire turns his attentions from the war on the streets to the war in the desert with this seven-part HBO miniseries following the Marines of First Recon Battalion as they attempt to survive the first forty days of the Iraq War. Based on the award-winning book by Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright, who witnessed the confusion of war firsthand while embedded with the First Recon, Generation Kill follows the marines as they attempt to contend with equipment shortages, incompetent commanding officers, constantly shifting Rules of Engagement, and a strategy that's never quite clear. Real life Iraq War veterans Sgt. Eric Kocher and Cpl. Jeffrey Carisalez serve as technical consultants on a series featuring First Recon Marine Sgt. Rudy Reyes as himself.

IMDB 8.8/10 (11,837 votes)

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Episode Guide:
1. Get Some.
In the opener of this seven-part miniseries about an elite Marine unit in the first weeks of the Iraq War, the diverse members of the First Recon Battalion await orders to invade at Camp Mathilda in Kuwait in 2003. Based on the book by Evan Wright, a reporter who was embedded with the unit as they crossed the border.

2. The Cradle of Civilization.
With the invasion of Iraq now in full swing, Sgt. Colbert tries to keep his unit focused. First Recon Marines adjust to shifting attack plans while anticipating their first contact with the enemy in Nasiriyah and Al Gharraf.

3. Screwby.
The "Godfather" orders Bravo Company to travel 40 kilometers to secure an Iraqi airfield believed to be controlled by the Republican Guard, in advance of British paratroopers. But the mission is marred by a "friendly fire" attack on a supply convoy and Trombley's overzealous reaction to a change in the rules of engagement, which results in a desperate request being sent up the chain of command.

4. Combat Jack.
Grumbling in the ranks about the abandoned supply truck occupies time to kill at the captured airfield, but Bravo is soon on the move again, heading north, clearing villages and setting up a roadblock outside Al Hayy. Meanwhile, Alpha is ordered to find the body of a marine in Al Shatra, but their mission is delayed by a CIA operation.

5. A Burning Dog
Despite an armored division's punishing response to 1st Recon's intelligence-gathering about an ambush-in-waiting at a strategic bridge, Bravo still meets stiff resistance while making several attempts to cross it; a survey of the battlefield prompts more questions than answers about the enemy; a roadblock in Al Muwaffiqiyah tests the Marines' ever-changing rules of engagement.

6. Stay Frosty.
After First Recon is assigned the unfamiliar mission of escorting hundreds of civilians fleeing Baghdad, they begin to wonder if their part in the war may be ending. But the Godfather has other plans to get his men back into the battle.

7. Bomb in the Garden
In the series finale, Bravo arrives in Baghdad, where they do their best to address a restless population's concerns about food, water, medicine and electricity shortages. Meanwhile, a departing Scribe discusses recent events with the Godfather, and tempers flare during a football game at an abandoned Iraqi army base.

How do you top one of the greatest series in television history? If you’re David Simon and Ed Burns, you apparently get right back to work. Less than four months after HBO aired the final episode of their epic American crime series The Wire, the network debuted Generation Kill, a seven-part mini-series that the duo wrote with Rolling Stone scribe Evan Wright. The series was based on Wright’s book, which chronicled his time embedded with the First Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corp during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Wright’s up-close-and-personal narrative proved an ideal vehicle for Simon and Burns’ straightforward writing; their scripts for Generation Kill are in much the same no-nonsense style as their previous show. The first episode features little preparation and no proper introductions—we get to know the characters throughout the series, and our impressions of them come from observation of their actions instead of signposting dialogue. What little exposition we get comes through Wright himself, who is a character in the show (the Marines sneer at his RS credentials, but are duly impressed when they find out he used to write for Hustler). And as in The Wire, the characters speak in their own language of lingo and jargon, which viewers are trusted to piece together on their own, from context and repeated usage.

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The show’s seven episodes follow the Battalion’s Bravo Company from their preparations for the invasion to their movement through the country and finally to their daily patrols in Baghdad. The series doesn’t take an official or obvious position on the war; as with The Wire, there is an admirable absense of soapboxing or solutions. That isn’t to say that opinions aren’t offered; these are real people with something at stake in this conflict. But what you don’t have are a lot of big, grandstanding speeches and come-to-Jesus moments; we piece things together through off-hand comments and behavior, and everyone doesn’t feel the exact same way, or express themselves admirably. There is much more rage in the show toward military bureaucracy, frustration at a chain of command that is mostly disconnected and often downright wrong.

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Simon, Burns, and Wright (and the show’s British directors, Susanna White and and Simon Cellan Jones) juggle a huge ensemble cast. There are more than two dozen important speaking roles, and the resulting product has an undeniably Altmanesque feeling to it; as in a kaleidoscope like Nashville or Short Cuts, it’s possible to get lost in the opening sections, to lose track of who’s who. But the writing and direction are confident and assured, and the acting is natural and unshowy. Two of the primary characters stand out: Sergeant Brad “Iceman” Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard, so good as creepy “Eric” on HBO’s True Blood) is a thoughtful, intelligent corpsman with a clear sense of right and wrong and no patience for bullshit, while Corporal Ray Person (James Ranson, memorable as “Ziggy” Sobotka on The Wire’s second season), driving the Humvee in his wraparound Elvis sunglasses, provides a constant stream of funny, quotable, cynical dialogue (my favorite was his response to a comment from the reporter, late in the show: “I knew you were a gay ass fucking liberal. You tried to pretend by invading Iraq with us, but I knew!”) without ever seeming to be anything as jive and simple as “comic relief.” That pair, and the equally excellent Lee Tergesen as Wright’s on-screen alter ego, get the lion’s share of the screen time, but the rest of the cast (many of them real-life members of the Corps) are seen more in fleshed-out, fully realized moments. Several of them (Stark Sands’ bright but frustrated Lt. Fick, Billy Lush’s deceptively simple Lance Cpl. Trombley, Eric Nenninger’s out-of-control Cpt. Dave “Captain America” McGraw, and especially Chance Kelly’s hard-ass Lt. Col. Stephen “Godfather” Ferrando) make incredible impressions with a limited amount of camera time.

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But the writing and directing really are the stars here; White and Jones’ filmmaking is smooth but never predictable, and their scenes propel forward with force and genuine momentum. And the scripts are marvels of efficiency and low-key realism—everything, from the broad strokes of military hierarchy to the tiny details of desperate mission preparation (“When the Army goes to war, they get it all… but the Marines, we make do”), feels authentic and inhabited and imbued with a fully realized notion of that particular time, place, and mood. This is excellent, riveting television.

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“So what’d you see, reporter?” asks “Godfather” towards the end of the final episode. It’s a hell of a question. What the viewers of Generation Kill see, through the eyes of Evan Wright and his protagonists, is a ground-level view of the Iraq conflict that is neither romanticized nor didactic; it is direct, unvarnished, and feels as honest and real as anything this side of documentary. Kudos to Burns and Simon, for again expanding the conventional wisdom of what television can be, and what it can do.

Jason Bailey

Based on the book by Evan Wright, Generation Kill shows us the Iraq invasion through the eyes of a reporter embedded with the Marine Recon Unit at the start of the invasion (or liberation or occupation..whatever the hell you want to call it) of Iraq.
Ed Burns and David Simon (The Wire) are responsible for GK and once again deliver a wonderfully diverse group of characters. Like the Wire, each stands out as unique, with few fitting into a neat stereotype. With a cast this large, it would be easy for many to fall between the cracks, but GK manages to establish them all without it feeling forced. Tidbits about each come out over the course of the series.
Since it is based on reality, things are not neatly wrapped up. At the end of the series, there was only a limited feeling of closure, that some things would likely only get worse.

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After watching the series, I have read the book. I have to say that Simon and Burns did a hell of a job bringing the printed words to life, delivering an excellent translation while keeping the heart and soul of the source material. Any adaptation is tricky, but using factual material is especially difficult. You are expected to avoid taking liberties of the truth, yet folks still want it to be entertaining. GK manages to be faithful and still a delight to watch. There is humor one minute, with sadness and ever horror the next.
I never felt like I was being preached to. GK gives us a look at the events and some of the affects they have on the soldiers and, like The Wire, puts the brass in a fairly critical light. I asked a few military men I know what they thought of the portrayal of the officers and the general response was that it was accurate.

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But while one might initially think that the officers get the short end of the stick, we get the good and bad up and down the ranks. I think the difference is that the actions of officers, good and bad, affect more people and thus are more noticeable.
The jargon and slang might seem daunting at first, it is very dense and you might find yourself wondering just what the hell they are saying. The more I watch, the more I was able to figure out what was being said, even if I did not know the exact meaning of each and every term.

With Generation Kill, Simon/Burns continue to maintain a high standard that the rest of television will have to work hard to reach.

Jeremy Lynch, Crimespree Magazine

This 7 part series is excellent. The producers of "the Wire" and "on the corner" are really on a roll. If you want a truer picture of events in Iraq other than the political polemic and media propaganda then this is the one to watch. The novel which it is based on is well worth reading too as it is more detailed and somewhat more descriptive.

Like the 'wire' the series producers/writers assume the audience has an intelligent and inquisitive mind which wishes to be engaged fully. This is not your usual Hollywood fodder.

This series manages to give us a view of events from the perspective of the grunts on the ground and it doesn't really hold back on language, explicit detail or events. Like the wire - you get the realistic use of language, its like you are overhearing the conversation and it takes a little while to tune into the lingo.

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Miraculously the series manages to walk the tightrope of balance very well, giving the views and perspective from the grunts and commanders to the iraqi civilians and more. The wider political perspective is justly criticised and it is blatantly obvious that there is no plan at all for restoring the political and authoritative void left in the country. No one comes out of this smelling of roses and questionable decisions and actions are taken. The differing viewpoints are depicted fairly, cock ups are shown to be what they are and the result of them and of course there are some plainly absurd orders from above. It shows the real war on the ground and not the PS3 war depicted on the news casts of low collateral damage. This is a very thought provoking series which gains momentum as it progresses. The series also has a good dose of the black wry humour reminiscent of Spike Milligan's war memoirs. Highly recommended.

zargb5, amazon.com

All Thanks goes to the original encoder!!!