So does the movie state that the invasion was a big fat lie?

The book is very anti-war and the movie will be as well. Dumb post.

Ang Lee is an inteligent and wise man. I would be dissapointed if he would make the same patriotic bullsh*t like Clint Eastwood or Michael Bay.

no. he is working at abu ghraib and enjoys interrogating prisoners for intel. not everyone has the stomach to shock the testicles but once you do, it doesn't phase you at all just like billy. I hope they show the part where where he drills that guy's hand who is tied to that chair. you see that drill go right through his hand in 120 fps. Ang went for realism. he got actual death row prisoners for the tortures scenes and killed them for this movie. It gave it that realism.

If...Mr.Lee presents both sides of reality...then yes...the lies will be put forward...and lives would have been wasted for a few nasty old men...plus one real religious knucklehead...Mr.Blair...

if not...then Bush...Cheney and Co. ...will buy tickets for the premier.

...bar is closed people stagger out
the pretty, the crippled, and the proud.

If we hadn't invaded you'd be speaking Arabic now.

The book isn't "very anti-war," unless you think any critique of mindless patriotic display is "anti-war." The soldiers in it are heroic, and we know they've performed heroic deeds. What the book implicitly criticizes it their being used for propagandic purposes. The book isn't explicitly pro- or anti-Iraq War. It just shows how some soldiers were used to deliver a gung-ho message that allowed people not to question anything about the policies behind war, at least in its early going. It's not anti-military (or even anti-war) to question the decisions that lead soldiers into battle, as we always should. We shouldn't just rubber-stamp it with "Well they must know best."

Sorry to see you get dissed by imdb members. Your question is legit.
I plan on watching this movie when it's available at the local library because I've been so let down at the theaters by mediocre movies.
BTW, most everything we are told is a lie.

I haven't red the novel, but I did see the movie.

It's not anti-war per-se.

The movie is depicting the difference between the minds of young soldiers, fresh from the battleground and the circus that is USA.

The difference between being depicted as a hero, by people who know nothing about war, and loosing a friend in battle after trying to save him.

The contrast between the closed-group of men, bonded trough baptism of fire, and the society asking completely ridiculous questions, which will yield answers they will not really understand.

If it's political, it's more in the sense that it shows that normal people, are taken out of normal families and that innocent boys, change into young,controlled killers and the only ones who see the change, are the people closes to you. The rest of America see you as a halftime-event and patriotic-masturbation.

I find the ending to be very good (albeit probably too complicated for the average defensive idiot, already dead-set that this film is anti-American). The film shows very nicely that Billy realize that the only 'loved ones' he has, that understands where he is coming from, are his brothers in arms, with the Vin Diesel father-figure passing on the brotherly love between the soldiers.

You can like or dislike the film, but it's not anti-war or anti-American. Even though there are characters in the film who are critical to the war and politics (Billy's sister), it's lashing-out against policy-makers because they took her brother away and that they may even take his life. She is powerless to stop this and thus lash out very verbally against the war.

The film makes a point of the fact that Billy signed up to the military to help his sister pay her medical-bills. This is political and critical to how and why people are sent off to war, but it is a good one, since there are way too many young people signing up because there are no jobs, there is hardship all around and that the requiting-system paint the service as a career-choice.

Also, in the end-conversation where they smoke some weed with the civilian who tell them about his thoughts about signing up, the film makes a point that the bonus has gone up. He is promised more bonus than they were, this indicate that it's getting harder to recruit fresh meat these days and that the military takes step to ensure a steady flow to the ranks.