Saving Jessica Lynch

Saving Jessica Lynch: a first-impressions review

Thumbs up.

I thought this was a good movie. It did not romanticize or heroicize Pfc. Lynch or what she endured. NBC didn't make her a female Rambo. The movie spent a lot of time showing what her Iraqi co-rescuer, Mohammed al-Rehaief, risked to tell the Americans about her confinement.

The Nasariyeh battle sequence was well done. My only complaint would be showing the fedayeen just standing in the middle of the street, hip shooting their AK-47s. That's a good way to (a) get killed, as a fair number of them did and (b) shoot the sky, not your targets. But for all know, the fedayeen there really did that. Heck, in Baghdad they charged Abrams tanks with pickup trucks, so their open-battle skills seem not to have been very great.

There was a lot of action about the firefight what wasn't presented, of course, but the movie was not about the whole battle. It tracked Lynch and those involved directly with her.

It was good to see the American military officers and enlisted members portrayed with decency and humanity. The Iraqi medical staff were sympathetically presented, which accords with what I recall was written about them once Nasiriyah was secured and western media moved in. The fedayeen leader was something of a caricature, but on the other hand, when you portray Nazis or those like them, can you really overplay their evil?

The sequence when the SOF uncovered the American bodies from the sand with their hands could have easily been overplayed. But it was understated and evocative without being maudlin.

All in all, this movie was a worthy presentation for Veterans Day weekend. Kudos to NBC.

PS - I am a retired US Army artillery officer.

The real story of the Jessica Lynch affair is how the Pentagon lied to the country trying to depict miss Lynch as a hero, fighting off the enemy, when in actual fact all she suffered was getting injured and caught by the enemy. It was strange that CBS chose today to air (60 mins) the real story of what happened on that day and by the looks of it Jessica did not do much , contrary to the usual lying spin we get from our leaders today. The film, although technically well done is about nothing, with no conflict no interest and a who f*%&+#@ cares outcome. It is about nothing and the only reason why this story surfaced is because of the lie perpetrated by those who would blind us about the horrible immoral and unworthy war we are sending our children to.

Saving Jessica Lynch is a TV docudrama that was literally thrown together within months following the dramatic rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in the first weeks of `Iraqi Freedom.' There was much skepticism for many who even considered working on the project do to the quick timing. To this day, rumor and innuendo still surround the facts.

NBC claims that this particular version of events are the story rights of Mohammed Al Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who risked his life and family by telling American Soldiers of Lynch's where abouts. Yet, the movie starts long before Al Rehaief's participation, and the circumstances surrounding events without Al Rehaief are apparent matter of fiction, creative conjecture, and public record, that the creators have handled well. But there will always be this question, that I hope critics will answer, who does this story really belong to?

With all politics aside, and much to my surprise, this movie was particularly enthralling with its suspense, action, and heart felt drama.

The movie starts with the military convoy of the 507th maintenance support vehicles in the dark desert, headlights bouncing light and shadows between vehicles and blowing sand, quickly setting a desolate and soon to be lost mood. With a lack of communication and an aberrant GPS device, choosing the right turn is negligible. The chosen road takes the convoy to the small town of Nasiriya, where all types of Iraqi fighters are seemingly eager to shoot their first American. The tempo methodically builds as the Iraqi fighters push a school bus out into the street causing the convoy to abruptly come to a halt. A long pause for thought and what to do adds to the tension. A plan for escape ensues, but it quickly unravels as the Iraqi's open fire, bullets ricocheting and penetrating all the vehicles at once. Trying to see through the barrage of gunfire as if driving through a pounding rain storm, Lynch's vehicle driven by her close friend Lori Piestewa, crashes into a supply truck.

The passengers of the supply truck, which include soldiers Shoshona Johnson and Patrick Miller, attempt to lend aid to Lynch's vehicle. While dodging bullets, they realize and assume that all are lost, including Lynch.

The devastating battle continues. Patrick Miller and the unknown `blonde' soldier's heroics go practically unnoticed, but that does not stop the drama of the moment or performances from painting a descriptive picture of what essentially happened. We even see Shoshana Johnson take a shot in the ankle. A significant and identifiable moment for woman in the military.

The Iraqi fighters take the surviving soldiers Edgar Hernandez, Joseph Hudson, Shoshona Johnson, Patrick Miller, and James Riley as Prisoners of War. Jessica Lynch is then pulled from the bullet ridden vehicle by the Iraqi's, her seemingly lifeless body, dropped to the ground.

An Iraqi soldier dressed in black, presumably Fedayin, notices that Jessica is still alive, and he orders his men to take the remaining bodies and Jessica away.

Lynch is taken to a warn out hospital where the Fedayin impose their headquarters amongst doctors and patients. With trepidation, a woman doctor makes several clandestine attempts to comfort Jessica. While visiting his wife, who is also a doctor at the hospital, Mohammed Al Rehaief discovers that Lynch is being held. Al Rahaief begins to wrestle with his own conscious and how his family has been affected by Hussein's regime. We even see his neighbor, a woman, being dragged down the street behind a truck because she merely waved at an American helicopter. With years of watching his people tortured, and fearing for the future life of his own little girl, it appears that his selfless decision to contact the US military didn't even take a second thought.

Al Rehaief walks out into the desert at night after the Fedayin imposed curfew, and finds a military regiment to share his news. In a horrifying moment, Al Rehaief is secured at gun point, and shrouded with a bag over his head before being brought to the commander. At one point, Al Rehaief even asks if he will be tortured.

The discovery of the location of a missing soldier, let alone a 19 year old young woman who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, creates great concern and interest to the white house. `We leave no soldier behind' rings true in this story. Without much hesitation, the military takes a leap of faith in believing Al Rehaief's story, and organizes one of the most carefully calculated and meticulous rescues that even the best writers in Hollywood gulped and stuttered at.

Although we as an audience know the outcome, watching the rescue events unfold in this docudrama brings out an emotion of recent memory of watching the specifics on CNN in green. Even though the creators have mixed fact with fiction, the fact that this young woman was rescued in the condition she was in with the help and aid of Iraqi citizens is truly a miracle. The story of the 507th and downed pilots David S. Williams and Ronald Young Jr. is one that needs to be told. Someday it would be nice if there was a narrative that is a compilation of each of their stories, and that it be made into a feature film with all of their blessings.

`Saving Jessica Lynch' is unauthorized by Lynch, and I think it was made and released too quickly and without proper consent. But this story was put together well, and did not particularly exploit the soldiers as feared by critics. It was most certainly worth seeing.

I came away from this film the same way as I do when I watch a Second World War film or documentary in which the Germans are fighting the Russians. The Germans were invaders and were ruthless yet the Russians were equally as bad and they were just defending their homeland against an aggressive invader so just let them all fight and kill each other (which they pretty much did). In viewing this I could not find myself cheering for the U.S. Troops or feeling sorry for them when they came under attack from the Iraqis. It makes no difference if the U.S. said that what they were doing was right and just and were there as liberators (The Germans said the same thing) . The U.S. waged an aggressive unprovoked war under what could very well be false pretenses. All that aside and considering that this incident just happened a few months ago the film for a made for TV venture was quite well done. Much of what really happened and took place may not be known for some time and when the full story finally does come out as they all eventually do when it comes to war stories it may make this picture seem hypocritical, foolish and phony.

Hard to see what Jessica Lynch did to become a hero from this movie. She spent most of the film in a hospital bed.

The battle scene in which she was captured showed her knocked out in an accident while her fellow soldiers battled against overwhelming Iraqi forces. It would be nice to see a movie about those folks and not about a woman who was asleep the whole time.