Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

meddlecore "The Pentagon Wars" is a made-for-HBO movie, that was originally broadcast in 1998. It is based on the account of Colonel James Burton (also the main character, played by Cary Elwes), a former military man who found himself up against a wall of ambition, when tasked with vetting the field effectiveness of the Bradley Military Vehicle. A number of high ranking and highly influential military minds had already invested their careers, reputations and billions of taxpayer dollars into the Bradley project- with little-to-no results. What was originally supposed to be a personnel transport device, found itself constantly being redesigned, until it was a hybrid scout/personnel transport/tank that was rather ineffective at carrying out any of the tasks it was meant for. The whole thing ended up too slow to operate as a scouting vehicle, too bulky to carry a significant amount of troops, and too weak to go up against any sort of anti-tank defences. But too many people had invested too much in this project to admit defeat. So, despite the fact that such a vehicle was absolutely unfit for the field became irrelevant when weighed against the egos and ambitions of those behind the project.Hence, when Colonel Burton shows up to test the field effectiveness of the machine, he finds it to be lacking, and questions whether it should be put into production. His investigations reveal that a conspiracy has been undertaken to cover-up the vehicles shortcomings- including fraudulent tests used to determine it's safety and effectiveness in the field.Instead of just acting as a whistleblower though, he decides he needs to do everything by the book...convincing the soldiers that have been helping carry out the tests to change their ways, as opposed to just leaking the story to an outside media outlet. Burton does manage to convince congress to initiate an investigation into this $14 billion dollar con that was to see an overweight and overly explosive aluminum can be sent out into combat situations...with soldiers inside.Despite this, the actions of this unsung hero would force him to resign from the military, while he watched those behind this bloated failure of a project move up the ranks.This film is both entertaining and educational. While shot to be a comedy, this is a very revealing story, with very serious implications. It goes to show the kind of crap that the Military Industrial Complex is able to pull off, unbeknownst to the public, on a regular basis. And it has a great cast too: with the likes of Kelsey Grammar, John C. McGinley, among others, in supporting roles. This is a film that reveals the American Military's macho posturing for what it really is....posturing. Worth a watch if you are looking for an informative laugh. Would make a nice double-feature with "The Doomsday Gun", another made-for-HBO movie. 6 out 10.

Hollywood_Yoda "The Pentagon Wars" is the story of one of the most expensive military fiascoes in American History, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and its long road from whence it began. Cary Elwes stars as Col. James Burton, a man sent to help finish the Bradley project at the Pentagon. However, General Partridge played beautifully by Kelsey Grammar has other plans, to send Burton packing.Burton's plan was to complete the project, which at his time of entrance had been ongoing for nearly 20 years. With every test Burton would schedule for the Bradley, the General would find a way to make it even harder to get the results Burton needed to sufficiently pass the project. In the end, Col. Burton is reassigned and taken off the project and General Patridge thinks his headache is over.That is until a Congressional investigation by the Armed Services Committee gets underway and the General is under investigation as to why the Bradley has taken over 20 years in development and still not completed. Col. Burton finally gets his tests, and the result was that the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was not suitable for military personnel, but a profit-horse for the General.It's a film that shows that the process of Democracy can sometimes work in the favor of good vs. evil.

motor89 As an adaptation from Lt. Col. James G. Burton's 1993 book of the same name, 'The Pentaton Wars' dramatises the ludicrous time/money wasting going on in the many Pentagon weapons programmes during the cold war.The film focuses on the development of the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Burton (an U.S. Air Force Lt. Col played by Cary Elwes) is appointed, by Congress, to test and evaluate the vehicle that has been under development by the U.S. Army for 17 years at a cost of $14 billion. The press has caught onto the astonishing waste and incompetence, and pressure is applied to prove that the whole thing isn't just throwing away vast quantities of money. Politicians, sensitive to the press coverage, begin to insist that some of these weapons programmes actually go into production, rather than just sitting around on the drawing board and testing grounds.The General in charge of the programme (played by Kelsey Grammar) is superficially friendly and cooperative to Burton, but his main aim is to stall and divert him into doing nothing to interfere with the gravy train -- just as so many previous appointees have avoided doing in the past, to the benefit of their careers. No-one wants to sabotage a hugely lucrative programme and find themselves ostracised.Burton, though, has other ideas. After observing a deeply flawed test of the vehicle he begins to dig deeper. He looks into the history of the programme and finds designers being constantly asked to redesign it to fit in with ever shifting fads. The vehicle started out as a troop carrier, until one General realised he could chop a big chunk out of his budget by merging his "scout" project with it -- meaning it now had to have guns, a turret, detection equipment and be twice as fast (meaning it carries half as many people with less armour to protect them)... and so on. At one point, another General even suggests making it amphibious. After the 17 years of this, the end result is a hideous mongrel that can't perform any role particularly well.Burton's investigations into the testing methods of the programme are no more encouraging. The "successful" tests performed on the armour are supposed to have been done with Soviet weaponry, but were actually done with Romanian RPGs that can't even blast through a metal door ("Romania is part of the Soviet-block" is the excuse). Other tests of its resistance to fire after being hit are done when the gunpowder in the carried ammo is replaced by sand, and the fuel tank is either empty or full of water. A British Army report into the type of aluminium used for the vehicle (when hit by a shell it burns and releases a toxic gas) is buried. Burton's attempts to run his own tests are constantly undermined and sabotaged. In one of the film's finest moments, Burton's idea to use sheep to test what would happen to a crew when hit by an RPG is blocked by the General setting up an ENTIRE NEW DEPARTMENT called "Ruminant procurement", thereby ensuring it will take 8 months for Burton's spec to be examined (type of sheep, length of coat, gender etc etc) and a further 8 months to actually procure them. Meanwhile, the under-pressure General is forcing the vehicle into production despite its manifest failings.The whole thing is played for laughs... there was no other way to treat it really. I haven't read the original book (but I will now), so I can't say how faithful it is, but it's a very smart and funny film. Anyone who has worked in a large organisation will be familiar with the goings-on... but only colossally budgeted ones like the military can take it to such comedic extremes.

koolduck23 i first saw this movie well before coming into the military, and while i found it very entertaining, didn't fully appreciate it. having now been 3 years in, i can very much appreciate the humor of this fantastic satire. granted, there is a fair amount of hyperbole, and no, not everyone in the military is so very inept... but simply put, a few years working with military intellegence elevates my view of this film quite a bit.