Hollywood’s multimillion-dollar
movies of 2007 having the Iraq war as
their theme and starring top actors
have been generally shunned by both
moviegoers and critics.
According to an article in the
British newspaper The Guardian, the
Americans, though may be divided on
many subjects, seem to agree on
rejecting the war films produced in
2007.
In the Valley of Elah, by the
Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis, is
about a father investigating the death
of his son in Iraq. The movie
collected just $6.5 million in two
months.
Lambs for Lions, the political
drama starring top-notch stars Tom
Cruise and Meryl Streep and directed
by Robert Redford, has been described
as the “the most inert, predictable
and unnecessary political film this
year.”
Another movie, Rendition, a
thriller that cost $50 million and
starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake
Gyllenhaal, grossed less than $10
million since it was released in
October 2007.
The article in The Guardian says
that even films that are not
war-themed but pertaining to issues in
the Middle East have suffered setback
in 2007.
The Kingdom, a movie that tells the
story of an FBI squad targeting Saudi
Arabian terrorists, has earned less
than $7 million. The film’s cast
includes Jamie Foxx and Jennifer
Garner. Jamie Foxx plays FBI agent
Ronald Fleury, who is determined to
put together a team to look into a
suicide-bombing in an American
compound in Riyadh, in which one of
his colleagues is killed.
The fate
of Brian De Palma’s Redacted has been
no better.
The Guardian article quoted critic
Michael Medved as commenting:
“Redacted could be the worst movie
I’ve ever seen.”
Bill O’Reilly, film critic for Fox
News, went to the extent of asking
moviegoers to boycott Redacted,
terming it as “vile” and warning that
“it could get American troops killed.”
Redacted, the story about the rape
and murder of an Iraqi girl by US
troops, has had a limited release in
15 cities in the United States. It
collected a mere $25,000 at the box
office.
According to the article in The
Guardian, “the failure of this era’s
war films is a blow to Hollywood’s
confidence, especially given the
industry’s broad opposition to the
war. Liberal orthodoxy holds that
Americans are so sick of the war they
cannot bring themselves to watch films
about it.”
one film that is yet to
be released and may work is War,
starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
The movie revolves around a texas
congressman (Hanks) who supplies arms
to the Mujahideen in the 1980s during
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
