Generation Kill
For everyone experiencing The Wire withdrawal symptoms comes the incredible new series that creators David Simon and Ed Burns made next.
HBO Home Entertainment presents Generation Kill, a seven-part miniseries from HBO Films, released to own on DVD on 9 March 2009. This is a first-hand narrative account of the young Marines of the First Reconnaissance Battalion the beginning of the American military’s march into Iraq.
Based on the best-selling and award-winning non-fiction account of the same name by Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright, the journalist embedded in the lead Humvee of First Recon’s Bravo Company’s Second Platoon, the miniseries is a precise retelling of the early weeks of the military campaign from the point of view of the guys on the ground: the non-commissioned officers and platoon-level commanders who led the way to Baghdad.
Real events are depicted. Real names are used. As much as possible, the film employs the precise dialogue reported by Wright and the filmmakers made every effort to recreate his account of Bravo Two Marines riding from the Kuwait border into the slums of Baghdad.
As the 'tip of the spear' of the invasion, the Marines faced indicators of what was to come for the invasion: insufficient supplies, conflicting orders, military strategy, unknown enemy, insurgency and civilians caught in the middle.
The men of Bravo Company and their sister company Alpha adapted with skill, resolve, subversive humour, stoicism and occasionally blind faith.
A dysfunctional family road trip always leaves room for both conflict and humour, which appear often in the book and miniseries, reflecting the Marines’ way of life. Humour is often a coping mechanism for the extreme situations that they face.
The filmmakers hope that Generation Kill creates a sense of what it was like to ride into battle with these Marines, just as Evan Wright experienced the war with all its humour, frustration and terror from inside a First Recon Humvee.