Do we really need yet another drama about the Iraq War? Even if it is from David Simon and Ed Burns the creators of arguably the greatest show on TV. Having now watched the first episode of the HBO miniseries Generation Kill I’m still not sure I can answer the question.
It is a dramatization based on the book of the same name which was a real life account of the journalist Evan Wright who was embedded with the First Recon Battalion of the USMC and so it is as close to the truth as it can be without being a documentary. Yet as you might expect it has gained harsh criticism from many sides with people decrying it as being anti-American and others attacking it for the homophobic comments made by marines in the show.
Based on this first episode I think Generation Kill is going to be a fantastically well made miniseries and will offer a different perspective on the Iraq War to the one we’ve been having for the last five years as it will depict only the 40 days that constituted the actual invasion.