Last night I got to go see a private showing of the documentary called The Hornets Nest. It is produced by a father/son team of journalists. They are Mike and Carlos Boettcher. Mike Boettcher was actually in the theatre and he did the introduction to the documentary and gave a bit of the back scene details of it. There were also quite a few soldiers in the theater that had been there and were in this documentary also. This is real life footage of the unit they were embedded with, Mainly 2 battalions of the 101st Airborne. We went with one of my buddies who was there and in the documentary. I remember when we all had the discussion of the movie Lone Survivor and how real it seemed as far as the battle scenes etc. Well, none of this documentary is done with actors and none of the scenes are staged in any way. It is definitely real life, as it happened footage. When it was over there was a Q&A session with Mike Boettcher and a few of the guys that were there also spoke up and gave us all a more personal view as to what all happened.
I left there thinking this is something that everyone here would really want to see. It is supposed to be out in theaters by the end of the month. It has already been released is a few cities but the actual release date isn’t till the end of the month. I’m definitely taking my son and his best friend to see this and whole heartedly recommend it to everyone.
Here is a link to the documentary and the trailer.
I have a very difficult time with these films, as I am so conflicted by my anger at out leadership for committing our forces to such poorly conceived missions and my respect for those individuals making the sacrifice. It’s a difficult balance to oppose a war and support the warrior. So often the discussion leads to recriminations about futile sacrifices or wasted lives. But it’s a conversation this country has to have and we need to separate sacrifice from sentimentality.
How would you say this movie compares to Restrepo? Any reviews I’ve read so far tout it as being “like Restepo part 2” which shows the ignorance of those writing the review. But in all honesty, I was less than impressed with Restrepo for several reasons, and with the buzz Hornets Nest is getting, I hope it can do some justice to the portrayal of the Afghan war.
I just went online and viewed some trailers and Yes I had seen Restrepo so my previous post was incorrect. The big difference between Restrepo and The Hornets Nest is that there is very little soldier commentary after the fact. Meaning that in Restrepo there are many scenes where various soldiers are talking about their experiences during the year they were in the Korengal. It is intermixed with combat footage. Then of course Restrepo was about that units year in the Korengal. The Hornets Nest covers basically a 9 day period. The 2 101st Bn’s featured in this film were there for a year and there is also footage from a USMC unit that the son was embedded with for a short period of time but the majority of the documentary covers a 9 day period and the battle during that time. The film footage is mostly from the 2 journalists and you see most everything from their POV. There are clips from a couple of the soldiers themselves. Overall though they are fairly similar.
An acquaintance of mine was the SgtMaj for one of those BN’s when it was filmed. He and his wife were flown to Hawaii (or are going to be) for a preview of the film. He is retired now. Next time I see him I’ll ask what his take on the movie was.