Amir Bar-Lev, who took Sundance by storm three years ago with MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, returns with a look at the life and death of NFL football player-turned-post-9/11 Army enlistee Pat Tillman. And as Sundance heads toward mid-week, it appears that THE TILLMAN STORY is shaping up to be one of the most talked about films at the festival.
Says Andrew O'Hehir at Salon:
"THE TILLMAN STORY isn't just about the fact that Tillman was killed by friendly fire and the military brass lied about it, and essentially have never stopped lying. It's also about the fact that from the moment of his death, and even before, the former Arizona State and Arizona Cardinals star became a mythic, über-patriotic hero, the centerpiece of a right-wing, pro-military propaganda fable. He was never allowed to be who he was, a surprising, curious, and even eccentric individual who didn't fit the mold of either football player or gung-ho soldier.
In this funny, profane and profoundly sad film, Bar-Lev depicts Tillman and his similarly unconventional parents and brothers as belonging to a vanishing species: Americans who hew to no ideological standard, and who actually think for themselves."
Eric Kohn at The Wrap says that along with out-of-competition buzz title CATFISH, TILLMAN seems a sure bet to sell:
"A methodically structured account of the military cover-up surrounding the overseas death of former football player Pat Tillman in 2002, it delivers a particular brand of American outrage. Through revealing interviews with Tillman's family, Bar Lev explores how the government exploited Tillman's death to fabricate an American hero....
The result is not an expose, but rather a consolidation of story fragments into an infuriating document of military protocol gone awry."
Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail:
"It might sound like an insult to say that Amir Bar-Lev’s feature-length documentary about NFL star-turned-fallen soldier Pat Tillman would be best served as a 30 For 30 documentary on ESPN, but that seems to be the place where it would have the most powerful impact. Removing the “football star” aspect of the equation, Tillman’s death was still a tragic story, but as Bar-Lev gradually reveals, THE TILLMAN STORY isn’t about one family’s loss. It’s about our government’s shamefully inappropriate handling of this delicate situation. It’s an infuriating betrayal, and if Bar-Lev doesn’t break new ground in the telling of the tale—though cinematographer Sean Kirby (ZOO) injects it with style—he tells it very, very well."
Dennis Harvey, writing behind Variety paywall, calls the film riveting and says that "theatrical, broadcast and further fest exposure are assured":
"Told much more via straight reportage than Bar-Lev's fascinating MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, THE TILLMAN STORY mixes talking heads and archival footage into a detective story of escalatingly scandalous proportions. No matter one's political bent, the blatant misconduct by grunts, senior officers and politicos alike is terribly disturbing."
Bilge Ebiri at New York Magazine's Vulture Blog:
"One walks away from the film more furious than ever for the way Rumsfeld and Co. exploited Tillman’s death. But it’s more a sensitive portrait of the Tillmans, showing how this uniquely headstrong family took on the entire military and political establishment soon after realizing that their son’s death had been covered up in such cavalier fashion. War docs have been a mainstay of Sundance for the past few years, but by training his lens directly on the family at the heart of this saga, Bar-Lev captures something ineffable about the cost of war, suggesting that the real front is somewhere back home."
Charlotte at the Documentary Blog calls it "fantastically captivating and powerful":
"One of the aspects of the film I liked the most was the critique of the news media of memorialising him in an over-the-top way, for the wrong reasons. As much as the family are furious at the military’s handling of their son’s death they are also appalled at the use of his death as a propaganda tool which seems like a double insult to his memory."
Finally, the LA Times' Steven Zeitchik - with box office viability on his mind - makes the bizarre assertion that conservatives may not yet have heard that Tillman was a more complicated figure than initially portrayed in the media:
"While the film does put the spotlight on a neocon and Bible-belt hero, it mainly serves to tear down assumptions about him. In fact, its entire raison d'etre is to show him to be less a patriotic poster child than a quiet man with complex motivations who the military appropriated for its own reasons. All of which adds up to a paradox: The very people who would have an established interest in seeing the movie are those whose perceptions the movie seeks to undermine. There's a striking Fox News clip about midway through in which Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter say that they'd heard a rumor that Tillman read Chomsky and wanted to vote for John Kerry but they both "can't believe that." This movie pretty much makes you believe that, or at least makes you believe he's not the right-wing hero Coulter and Hannity would have you think he is."
Speechless, just speechless...
No surprises here for those who have closely followed the Tillman story over the past five years.
If you would like to learn more, I believe the single best short introduction to the Tillman story is Gary Smith’s Sports Illustrated's (9-11-06) cover story "Remember My Name"
I've placed a link to that article in my document "Remember the Iconoclast, Not the Icon" at
http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
In his book, “Where Men Win Glory,” Jon Krakauer blamed the Bush administration and the Army for the whitewash of Pat Tillman's death. However, the cover-up has actually been a thoroughly bi-partisan affair.
In particular, the Democratic Congress and the Obama Presidency have protected General Stanley McChrystal from scrutiny and punishment for his central role in the handling of the aftermath of Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death.
If you would like to learn more, I've posted several detailed documents to the blog that focus especially on the actions taken by Congressman Henry Waxman, Senator James Webb (along with Senators Carl Levin and John McCain), the New York Times Pentagon Reporter Thom Shanker, and the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) Fellow Andrew Exum to protect General Stanley McChrystal from punishment for his role in the cover-up.
And, finally, the binder “Battle for the Truth” discusses the parallels between Pat Tillman and Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu who died at the Raid on Entebbe in 1976.
Posted by: Guy Montag | January 26, 2010 at 10:53 AM