Code Name Geronimo reaches UK cinemas on December 14th and arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on December 24th.
If you’re not feeling the festive cheer at this time of year and don’t fancy the usual seasonal stories of goodwill to all men why not see this ultra-glossy and clumsily titled “docudrama. Because while it does centre round a famous white-bearded recluse he isn’t very jolly and some extremely un-Christmassy things happen to him. Yes, this is the dramatisation of the brutal take-down of Osama Bin Laden and the (entirely fictionalised) private lives and relationships between the Navy Seal team that did the taking down.
In fact it’s doubly strange that this deceptively thoughtful and less gung-ho than you expect film is released at this family friendly time of year, because it’s actually an American TV movie produced by the Weinstein Company for the National Geographic channel. It’s no secret that Hollywood powerhouse Harvey Weinstein is one of President Obama’s biggest public supporters and fundraisers so it’s surely no coincidence that this recreation of one of the President’s most popular achievements aired two days before the his victory at the Presidential election.
So while it’s easy to view Geronimo (I can’t keep using the full title or I’ll run out of space) as a piece of propaganda it’s not as mindlessly patriotic as you might fear. In fact, a lot of the (mostly right-wing) criticism that it’s received in the US stems from the fact that it doesn’t frame the titular team as knights in shining armour but as real and flawed human beings. Some of them, shockingly, seem to relish the gruesome task they’ve been assigned and some of them, even more shockingly to the right-wing press, don’t relish it at all. So while this is a film that strives to present a this-is-how-it-happened docudrama approach, there’s no getting away from the fact that its central characters are all figments of screenwriter Kendall Lampkin’s imagination. In real life Seal Team 6 are all still entirely anonymous, so this story is more or less entirely fictional and these characters are all inventions.
Lampkin has avoided any temptation to make them obvious stereotypes and they’re played by some recognisable faces such as Xzibit, Anson Mount from the popular Western TV show Hell on Wheels (sporting his decidedly 1870s looking hairdo, which is surely against regulations) and pint-sized, baby-faced Freddy Rodriguez who, while a fine actor, isn’t very convincing as a grizzled career soldier. We only get short glimpse into the lives and psyches of the characters before the action starts and it kind of feels like Lampkin was expecting to revisit them, in fact the whole thing feels a lot like the pilot episode of an ongoing TV show.
This extends to the film’s look, which seems to be aiming to redefine the word “glossy”. While it’s shot in the now familiar shaky-cam style pioneered by the Bourne films and favoured by TV shows like Homeland and 24, it’s also shot in eye-achingly clear HD that gives everything a hyper real look and is nicely immersive but has the side effect of showing the actors in excruciating detail. When William Fichtner (as intelligence bigwig Mr. Guidry) gets a close up all you can think is how old he’s looking. It’s no surprise that the film has such a sleek sheen as it’s directed by John Stockwell, who’s helmed similarly slick efforts such as Blue Crush and who started off as an actor. In fact he played Cougar in the ultimate glossily fetishised military movie event, Top Gun.
This isn’t as blatantly romanticised as that film. Although it’s a fiction it feels rooted in reality and it concludes with the real footage of Obama making his now famous speech informing the world that Bin Laden is no longer a threat. It becomes clear at this stage who the real star of the film is and depending on your political leanings at this point you’ll be either be filled with admiration or anger.
Overall Verdict: This an incredibly glossy and slick drama and while it often feels like exciting escapism it’s hard to enjoy it as such because there’s no escaping the fact that this is essentially a piece of propaganda and although it claims to tell the true story of Bin Laden’s death it’s almost completely fictional. Still, it helped Obama get a second term so it’s done its job well and probably deserves praise for that.
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon