War | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk [2016]

2016/11/222016/11/23 Jared Mobarak

“What else is there?” Here’s an Oscar-winning director doing something no one else has—shoot an entire film at 120 frames per second (standard is 24, the previous high 48 with The Hobbit)—and movie theaters couldn’t accommodate. At a time when it’s difficult to get butts in seats with Netflix and VOD, an opportunity for a legitimate must-see theatrical event is squandered. Venues dropped the ball. Buffalo, NY isn’t the biggest of cities, but you’d think sustaining six-plus movie houses earns a chance to see Ang Lee‘s vision as intended. Sorry,…

REVIEW: Hacksaw Ridge [2016]

2016/11/012016/11/03 Jared Mobarak

“Come back home to me” It took almost sixty years before Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor, was cajoled from modesty to allow for a cinematic adaptation of his harrowing journey from Virginia to Okinawa’s blood-soaked WWII battlefield. It took another fifteen before the result hit the big screen, sadly ten too late for this hero to watch the sobering yet wholly inspirational look at faith and valor amidst chaos himself. Mel Gibson took the director’s chair after twice turning it down with Robert…

REVIEW: War Dogs [2016]

2016/08/152016/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“What would a bad man do?” Of course director Todd Phillips would gravitate towards a Rolling Stone article titled “The Stoner Arms Dealers.” If the man behind The Hangover trilogy was ever going to delve into more dramatic territory a la contemporary Adam McKay and last year’s The Big Short, Guy Lawson‘s piece on two twenty-somethings who landed huge military contracts with the US government before federal indictments was the perfect segue. It’s as though the characters from his Old School decided to make connections with black market arms organizations…

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Tank 432 [2016]

2016/07/212016/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“Suck it in, remember your training, and get on with it” Director Ben Wheatley is showing his eye for talent by putting his name behind a guy who’s worked closely with him since 2011’s Kill List. A filmmaker in his own right, camera operator Nick Gillespie has stayed by Wheatley’s side on every subsequent project up to and including the forthcoming Free Fire. This time around it’s he who’s providing the claustrophobic thriller as writer and director of Tank 432 (formerly known as Belly of the Bulldog). It’s a doozy…

REVIEW: Eye in the Sky [2016]

2016/04/052016/04/07 Jared Mobarak

“Never tell a soldier he doesn’t know the cost of war” How do you simultaneously become hero and martyr in twenty-first century warfare? You find yourself unwittingly lodged within the kill zone of a high value target that has been confirmed without a shadow of a doubt. Death or injury earns you both labels for your people. To die as collateral damage is to potentially radicalize more and more jihadists who may or may not prove more volatile than the ones murdered in the incident. But when actual terrorists who…

REVIEW: Saul fia [Son of Saul] [2015]

2016/03/032016/03/04 Jared Mobarak

“You failed the living for the dead” It’s stunning how all these years later a Holocaust film can come along and prove wholly unique from the myriad examples we’ve already received and lauded. But László Nemes‘ directorial debut Saul Fia [Son of Saul] does exactly that. Not only does he capture the brutality by entering into the bowels of 1944 Auschwitz amongst the men and women going to their deaths in the showers or the pits, he somehow exposes the numbness felt by those forced to assist the Nazis in…

REVIEW: Krigen [A War] [2015]

2016/02/272016/03/02 Jared Mobarak

“B for Bang” It’s not inconsequential that Tobias Lindholm‘s latest drama is simply and generically titled A War [Krigen]. This isn’t a story about Afghanistan or even Denmark—war is war no matter where it takes place or who is involved. Instead the film is about our actions both home and abroad, in the fight and outside it. It’s about our ever in flux notion of conscience and moral compass as it relates to patriotism rather than right or wrong. At the end of the day war is fought because governments…

REVIEW: Fear and Desire [1953]

2016/01/282016/01/29 Jared Mobarak

“Rafts always float” I love that legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick began his career with a dud so misguided he was rumored to have tried to destroy every print in existence. In his words it was a “bumbling amateur film exercise” and he’s not wrong. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering he was a twenty-five year old recently quit photographer from Look magazine with two short films under his belt. Unlike Quentin Tarantino‘s My Best Friend’s Birthday, however, Fear and Desire wasn’t some movie made on a whim. Kubrick…

REVIEW: Day One [2015]

2016/01/212016/01/29 Jared Mobarak

“This is my first job” It’s just too much: too manipulative, too familiar, and too convenient. The trouble with Henry Hughes‘ Day One all stems from one line when his American military unit’s new interpreter Feda (Layla Alizada) meets her predecessor Naz (Shari Vasseghi). They speak about being away from home and family in the context of their being wives—a legitimate concern with the Muslim religion holding a woman akin to property with which to serve her husband, but overly “feminine” as only a male writer could write (despite the…

REVIEW: Prologue [2015]

2016/01/202016/01/29 Jared Mobarak

I wasn’t sure what I was watching once Richard Williams‘ Prologue moved past its carefully drawn flower pollinated by a bee and a butterfly soaring across the screen to wipe the page clean before introducing the sharp eyes of soldiers. Their shields and spears conjured thoughts of Sparta; the lack of clothing on the men a character study of anatomy. To me there seemed no purpose other than that: to show the human body engaged in warfare to brutal effect. But then a little girl is seen, her innocence lost…

REVIEW: Beasts of No Nation [2015]

2015/11/27 Jared Mobarak

“You must die before you are reborn” War often leaves as large a psychological scar as physical. Surviving with your life is sometimes not enough to escape the horrors of what’s been done to yourself or those around you. As for what you’ve done—those acts remain forever in nightmare. So when young Agu (Abraham Attah) is asked to share the details of what transpired before and during his time with the NDF rebellion of an unnamed African country, it’s hardly surprising to hear him refuse. This isn’t a bad kid…