It didn’t take long before the more progressive media began taking potshots at “Lone Survivor.” Instead of describing the hit motion picture for what it is — a story of duty, honor and heroism on the battlefield — some outlets are calling it “war propaganda” depicting the Taliban is depicted as villains (as if that’s a bad thing).

Are we watching the same movie?

The film depicts the true story of four Navy SEALs who were ambushed in Afghanistan by Taliban terrorists, leaving but one survivor to tell the tale — Marcus Luttrell. Some reviewers saw something altogether different.

New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein said the film was “crudely written, rife with clichés, and leaves out anything that would transform a piece of propaganda into a work of art.”

Edelstein bemoaned a scene in which a Taliban warlord beheads an Afghan villager “before the eyes of the victim’s son,” saying, “the problem is not that Taliban leaders never behave that way; it’s that cartoon villains do.”

Although Edelstein had sympathy and even admiration for real-life Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell and his fallen comrades, he was disappointed that then-President George W. Bush wasn’t criticized in the movie.

“The film doesn’t link the absence of air support and the near-total failure of communication in the mountains to an administration that diverted personnel and precious resources from Afghanistan to the catastrophic occupation of Iraq, leaving men like Luttrell with a tragically impossible job,” he wrote.

Translation? It’s Bush’s fault.

He also criticized filmmakers for failing to portray “Dick Cheney’s ‘Dark Side’ manifesto,” where “prisoners were being tortured to death by U.S. interrogators.”

In the end, Edelstein called the film “a brutally effective movie, made by people who think that they’re serving their country.” But, he said, “they’re just making us coarser and more self-centered. They’re perpetuating the kind of propaganda that sent the heroes of Seal Team 10 to their deaths.”

Warning: IRS about to quietly adopt new rules that will legally muzzle tea party groups

The Atlantic’s Calum Marsh found the film “propagandistic,” with “aggressively nationalistic” elements, adding, “I suppose the reader should be reminded of Leni Riefenstahl, known for directing Nazi propaganda films for Adolph Hitler.”

Marsh also agreed with Edelstein’s critique that the film portrayed the Taliban as “cartoon villainy — the realm of the black hat and the twirling moustache.”

Uh, they’re terrorists — they’re not juvenile delinquents misunderstood by an uncaring society.

Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer told Fox News’ “The Kelly File” host Mehyn Kelly on Monday that “what they’re calling ‘propaganda’ is the reality for 0.4 percent of the nation who has gone over there for the last 12 years.”

All of which gives me an idea. We should send Edelstein and Marsh to Afghanistan. Give them a dose of reality, and offer them the chance to rewrite their reviews.

Watch Kelly’s interview with Meyer here via Fox News:

Related articles:
Texas movie theater cancels blockbusters to accommodate massive ‘Lone Survivor’ crowds

Smack-down: CNN’s Jake Tapper finds out the hard way not to insult ‘Lone Survivor’ Marcus Luttrell

Meet Mohammad Gulab, the Afghan ‘brother’ who saved Marcus Luttrell

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Michael Dorstewitz

Mike has been with BizPac Review almost from the beginning. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeBPR.

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