HONORABLE MENTION
300 (2007)
Even relatively anti-war films like Platoon acknowledge the fierce camaraderie and euphoric adrenalin rush of warriors in combat, but this surrealistic adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel about a legendary phalanx of Spartans taking on a zillion enemy warriors is all bloodlust, all the time. Yet, while historically suspect (since modern researchers are pretty sure the power-mad Persian king Xerxes didn’t really command a legion of trolls, orcs and giants from the darkest reaches of Middle Earth), and hardly on par with more serious evocations of combat (like, say, Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket), 300 is notable, like many of the best war films, as a reflection of its time. Some critics detected jingoistic echoes of George W. Bush’s “bring ‘em on” foreign policy in the refusal of Spartan badass King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) to negotiate with foreign powers, going it alone with his own Coalition of the Willing when other nations (and a cowardly Congress...er, Spartan Council) refuse to authorize war against an imminent Persian threat to democracy and freedom. Just as Nixon reportedly watched Patton over and over again before sending troops into Cambodia, it’s easy to imagine Bush viewing 300 to make himself feel better about sending American troops into combat without sufficient body armor: after all, Leonidas and his 299 BFFs take down half Xerxes’ army bare-chested! Framed as a tale of indeterminate tallness relayed by a warrior to inspire his fellow troops on the verge of combat, the fetishized fairy tale unreality of 300’s violence, tone and (xenophobic) politics, its conflicted homophobic/homoerotic ideal of manliness, its complete surrender to (and celebration of) CGI fakery and its wild popularity and seductive guilty pleasure craftsmanship all combine into a fascinating time capsule of an age when troops compare combat to video games and the line between fact and fiction, has never seemed quite so blurry.
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