IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE Well, the idea, the plot and setting had potential but failed - an anti-war-movie with (of course) good intentions but doing too many things wrong - some examples: the tank crew is able to hear the talking outside, the gunner is most of the time just looking in the close surroundings, (his aiming device is used as the camera- perspective for the outside) and he looks a lot into faces and dead bodies in close- ups (looong shots), which a real tank gunner who wants to stay alive would never do - in combination with ground troops he would look out for enemies in the mid- to the far range and not in close range (many times - even with zoom - the gunner just looks some yards ahead, which is really annoying because totally unrealistic: e.g. he watches the BACK of his comrades outside and how they proceed instead of watching the surroundings - therefore the idea of getting the outside world only through the perspectives of the gunner, driver devices etc. backfires heavily). Many pictures just scream (esp. the close-up into all those pain-torn faces - the woman, at least the director took the chance to show us some boobs ;)) - I am an anti-war movie, war is bad, war is cruel, lalala, to an extent that it is just getting ridiculous. Ofc a movie can or should have some message but maybe it shouldn't scream it out so loud one gets deaf by it (to the message). On top we get bored by watching the tank-crew endless debating and arguing over and over (soap-opera like). Verdict: at most an one-timer but imo far too artificial and unbelievable to be a good (anti-)war movie and a waste of a potentially good story/idea. Some directors should maybe watch a lot of the stuff on YouTube troopers in real combat publish from their helm-cams etc., before doing such an endeavor, or at least analyze the best movies of the genre. A movie the p.c.-crowd ofc tends to celebrate and decorate with awards. Myself had to use the last 20 minutes the skip button generously just to get the movie finished.

Instructed to drive their tank through a small Lebanese town, four Israeli soldiers question the validity of their mission amongst mounting chaos and civilian deaths in this tense war movie, set entirely inside the tank. With the camera only leaving the tank in the opening and closing shots, the film acutely captures the soldiers' claustrophobia and discomfort, forced to view their destruction at a distance with a physical barrier between themselves and their victims. There are some excellent extreme close-ups of their wide-open eyes as they watch the horrors unfold before them and the echoing sound design adds to the desolate mood, with every noise in and outside the tank accentuated. Some have criticised the limited detail regarding the war in question, but this actually makes the soldiers' situation more universal; they could be any group of scared young men in any war. More problematic is the sketchy character development. The soldiers are a little too interchangeable and the performances are average at best. There are some solid turns though from the actors and actresses outside, with Reymonde Amsallem a standout as a grieving civilian mother. There is also a memorable bit involving an innocent farmer who gets in the way and the fact that the soldiers have to endure everything without any hand-to-hand combat renders 'Lebanon' one of the more unique war movies of recent time.

first of all I've heard all the comments about the weak shot. For me this was the reason I watched it. It's a story of young men thrown into conflict with little or no training. And the whole idea of what they see from that enclosed space is for me the most compelling part of the film. As an exercise in claustrophobic atmosphere it wins hands down. This was not a big budget film this wasn't your Private Ryan this was Das Boot set in a tank. Although I agree the tactics and deployment of the tank were at best the logical and against modern warfare theories. It was done for artistic license, which you have to in these situations. More than anything from me it boiled down to a few young men making very grown-up and misinformed decisions. But isn't that the point? In Old Man's War Novel by John Scalzi he explores this very thing. And tries to make the position that until you have lived a life you cannot determine the life of another.

The story told is set during Israel's 1982 war in Lebanon. It is filmed entirely inside an Israeli tank placing us amongst the claustrophobic restrictions and imprisonment that would be experienced by the crew.Young, inexperienced Israeli conscripts operate the tank and find it hard to deal with the horror of war. They witness the carnage wreaked upon many Lebanese civilians and the immoral, brutality of aspects of the Lebanese militia. The soldiers experience the fear of war as their tank becomes stranded in hostile territory. The director took part in the war and the film is therefore semi-autobiographical.