MovieChat Forums > Tigerland (2001) Discussion > Just Some Thoughts...

Just Some Thoughts...

posted 18 years ago by jesusrs16
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I would just like to express my view that basic training was not portrayed in a accurate way due to the fact that the film was biased, or so to say, on Bozz's part. I guess the film wanted to portrayed Bozz as an innocent victim. And so I must elabarote so that ye may understand my point.

-The first scene depicting how the day of a recruit starts does not capture the intensity of basic training. From my experience in the army, I would say the scene is too passive, the soldiers dress too slowly and are lazy, in reality, the wake up call started a race, an amazingly intense and confuse race -- and the last soldiers to leave the barracks would get punished. Either by getting hit really hard with a stick or by doing exercise. Not to mention that if you were last your buddies and superiors would start picking on you.

So the first scene of the film was unrealistic. Now I would like to move on to another scene that bother me. The scene when Bozz meets a Captain in his office, after Wilson tries to kill him, and Bozz has all that hair in his face. Its obvious he hadn't shave, and I don't know about the US army, but in the Colombian army, that captain would have punished Bozz for being unclean.

Another thing that greatly bother me was the amount of fights in the film. In reality, fights in the army aren't very common due to the severe punishments that people fighting suffer. A soldier who fights during Basic will probably not sleep much the whole week, and work out literally till he loses conscience.

Furthermore, a soldier like Bozz would never go out on leave, he'll probably be guarded all the time, would probably be hated upon by his partners, since due to his stupidity, they would suffer (in the army, for the mistake of one, the whole platoon pays, something the film didn't depict), and because he is hated by his partners, they'll probably steal his clothes, helmet, food, etc, and Bozz would never be a squad leader, because no one would listen to him, simply by the fact that he didn't listen to no one and made his platoon suffer.

Someone like Bozz would be forced to change in the army, he would be force to obey, he'll be broken down by his superiors, his fellow soldiers, and the system.

[–] scrabblemom01 18 years ago

I completely agree with you. My husband is a marine and he basicly said the exact same thing. He said Bozz would have never got away with the crap he was pulling. He would have been beat half to death, literally.

Don't bother the pigeons and they won't bother you.

[–] jonny17-2 18 years ago

I think the point is that Bozz is pretty special. The captain keeps saying that they've had guys like him come through before, but maybe they really haven't and they don't know how to deal with him. They recognise that he's a born leader and need to utilise him to get the others onboard, so they cut him some slack on his facial hair and with his disobedience.

The key factor is that this is set during war time. The majority of recruits are enlisted men. They haven't signed up willingly. There's a war going on and obviously training practices and attitudes are going to be changed than when dealing with men who've signed up off their own backs. By this point too, the war was pretty far along and everyone on the camp will have known that were going to a very, very dangerous situation where their lives would definitely be put at risk. This too would change the dynamic. I can understand how in these circumstances, some of the details of camp life might be different to that which marines training today experience.

Also, as for the idea of Bozz being beaten into line. Well, I think that's the point of the character. He'd never break; there was nothing they could do to him to pull him into line, so the army had to deal with him another way.

Just my thoughts.