The majority of people do not directly take part in wars around the world. Therefore, it is very significant that the people know the facts about wars and history, since it shapes our perception of a particular country, people, and events.
Although, most of the time, historians and academics pay a lot of attention to research and try to make sure that every detail that goes down the history books stays surgically close to the fact, on the cinema screen that's not always possible. Filmmakers and producers pay attention to other aspects of the story, and don’t seem to care if their facts don’t match.
Here's a list of ten horribly inaccurate war movies, littered with false stories and wrong depictions of facts:
10. Enemy at the Gates (2001)
The fact is that Eastern front of the Second World War has been criminally neglected for a variety of reasons, by the European media in particular and by the West in general, the reasons are very simple, the Cold War and all that followed it. However, Enemy at the Gates is no less than a cinematic representation of Soviet propaganda and ‘uber-exaggeration’ of the facts that took place on the western front.
The movie is based on the exploits of the famous Russian sniper Vasily Zaytsev, who is portrayed as a larger than life character, something more along the lines of a superhero. War movies are expected to be closer to the facts than to the fictitious bravery tales and legends. On top of that, the Red Army is shown as a super-army that took the Nazis adequately armed troops with a very short supply of weaponry, something like one old rifle for two men.
9. Jarhead
The movie aimed to portray the psychological trauma Marines had to endure during the first Gulf War. Despite some very good performances, Jarhead failed to acquire the acceptance from some war historians and Marines who fought in the war.
Nathaniel Fick, a former Marine, describes the portrayal of the Marines in the movie as preposterous, and completely missing the context on many places. He maintains that there is no doubt that soldiers are trained to be tough and rough, but the amount of psychological horrors Jarhead presents is extremely rare and highly unlikely. Fick also criticizes some of the ‘crazy’ actions that Marines are shown to be committing, citing that the Marine Corps is very disciplined, and trains their soldiers to be disciplined all the time. Overall, critics suggest that Jarhead gave a negative impression of the Gulf War in general and the Marines in particular.
8. U-571 (2000)
Nowhere could one find such a fact-shift in a war movie then in U-571, a perfect example of how the Army tries to downplay the role of its Allies throughout the twentieth century. In the movie, the Navy is presented as the sole contributors towards the capture of the infamous German code-making machine, ‘Enigma’. Enigma played a critical role in the early Nazi success, due to information so effectively coded that no one was able to crack it.
In reality, the British Navy had captured the first Enigma machine onboard a German warship in the early stages of the war in 1941, almost seven months before American claims of its capture, and completely disregards the Polish contribution to breaking the Enigma codes and sharing that with the British.
In fact, the only Enigma machine that the Navy could manage to get their hands on was captured in 1944, when the Nazi empire was crumbling, mostly due to the Russians.
Upon the release of the movie, British Prime Minister (at the time) Tony Blair came out and called the distortion of the facts presented in the film as ‘an affront’ to the bravery and contribution of British sailors in the War.
7. The Battle of The Bulge (1965)
This portrayal of an actual battle that took place in the last months of the Second World War is inaccurate and far from the facts on so many levels.
First and the foremost discrepancy is the use of war machinery in the film. Most of the tanks and aircraft that are shown are totally out of the place. The US-built tanks are used as German Tiger tanks, while most of the Jeeps and other vehicles were models designed and built after the Second World War.
Apart from the obvious technical errors, The Battle of the Bulge failed to depict the reality of the actual battle. History books and footages are filled with the fact that bad weather and snowy conditions made things very difficult for the Allied air support and helped Germans gaining an initial crucial edge. Whereas, in the movie, almost all of the fight is shown on a rather flat area with reasonably good weather conditions.
One could conclusively make a case that this 1965 attempt by Warner Bros to inform the public about the Battle of the Bulge utterly failed to do so on a factual and historically accurate level.
6. Red Tails (2012)
Red Tails was an average attempt to make a war movie about discrimination that ended up looking awkward and somewhat patronizing towards African-Americans.
The movie was about the legacy of the United States’ first all African-American squadron, known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The writers and directors were so much focused on the subject matter that no one seemed make sure the events shown matched the facts or not.
According to Red Tail, the squadron had the best bomber score, whereas the records quietly suggest otherwise. It also shows that the Tuskegee Airmen suffered no bomber losses during their whole campaign while archives tell a different story; more than two dozen bombers belonging to the Tuskegee Airmen were shot down by the enemy.
(Rico says they didn't get Dennis Haysbert for this, either; too bad, as he'd've been good in it.)
5. Windtalkers
John Woo’s wind talkers had no clear theme, but one could argue that it was loosely based around the Navajo code talkers. Despite the fact that these coders from the Navajo tribe played a crucial role in winning a number of battles against the Japanese, Windtalkers does not provide the correct account of events regarding Navajo code talkers.
It is a fact that every Navajo Marine was assigned a bodyguard, but the bodyguards’ sole job wasn’t just to protect the coder at all cost. According to the Windtalkers, the guards were ordered to kill the Navajo Marine, if necessary, in the interest of securing the code.
John Woo’s Hong Kong cinema experience made this unusual story, more of a theatric portrayal rather than a cinematic depiction.
4. Flyboys (2006)
Had Dean Devlin spent more time making the World War One-based Flyboys; then he would have had to invest less time on the justifications of various historical inaccuracies with which his movie was littered. Contrary to the film’s depiction of red Fokkers as the standard aircraft for German pilots, this plane was not in widespread use during the First World War.
The director of the movie defended his apparent mistakes in the film by saying that facing an aesthetic challenge they had to change few “minor” historical details.
All these fallacies and accuracies made sense, when, not long after the movie was released; Flyboy’s military advisor was exposed as a fraudster who confessed to having fabricated some historical records.
3. Pearl Harbor
There is no shortage of historical inaccuracies and apparent editing flaws in the 2001 depiction of the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the most obvious mistakes was the incident shown in the movie when Rafe McCauley (played by Ben Affleck) is shot down while his service in the UK. This was impossible at the time, because no American pilot was allowed to fly alongside RAF pilots, since the US had not officially entered the war.
Another distinct set of inaccuracies surrounds the commander of Pearl Harbor, who is shown playing golf on the day of the attack and, according to the movie plot, knew about the Japanese intention for their deadly attack. Both of these incidents never took place according to various war records and journals.
2. The Green Berets
Gaining a reputation as a ‘cowboys and Indians’ representation of the Vietnam War, The Green Berets not only failed to present facts of the war; it ended up glorifying a rather messy and highly controversial war.
This becomes more understandable and apparent when one considers the fact that The Green Berets was a propaganda attempt to counter the widespread anti-Vietnam War campaign all over the country. The producers and director of the movie invested all their efforts and energies towards glorifying the American side of this war.
However, no heed was paid to the facts. Patriotically uplifting and historically completely out of touch and utterly preposterous at times, The Green Berets proved to be another addition to an already long line of failed movies about Vietnam.
A depiction of what it was really like is shown here:
1. The Hurt Locker (2008)Rico says there's no excuse for this; there's been too much written about all these conflicts...
Though an excellent human drama, The Hurt Locker failed to portray the reality of the war in Iraq, and twisted some of the known facts about the Army.
The movie is about an elite bomb disposal squad that leaves no stone unturned to dispose of a number of IED’s aimed at the Army. Some Iraq war veterans criticized the movie for being too melodramatic and out of touch when it came to the discipline of the Army in Iraq.
The bomb disposal squad is shown in the movie risking the lives of many soldiers by showing up on the location of a bomb without adequate security. This is far from reality since, at the height of the Iraq war, elaborate efforts were made to make sure every convoy of American soldiers was properly secured, and soldiers were never in high-risk areas in small numbers. Another open criticism from the soldiers is their portrayal in the movie as hot-headed adrenaline junkies, indisciplined and, most times, immoral soldiers which, according to them, is nowhere close to reality.
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