Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

TeenzTen An action-packed slog

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Tweetienator IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE IAM AN ANTI-WAR MOVIE Well, the idea, the plot and setting had potential but failed - an anti-war-movie with (of course) good intentions but doing too many things wrong - some examples: the tank crew is able to hear the talking outside, the gunner is most of the time just looking in the close surroundings, (his aiming device is used as the camera- perspective for the outside) and he looks a lot into faces and dead bodies in close- ups (looong shots), which a real tank gunner who wants to stay alive would never do - in combination with ground troops he would look out for enemies in the mid- to the far range and not in close range (many times - even with zoom - the gunner just looks some yards ahead, which is really annoying because totally unrealistic: e.g. he watches the BACK of his comrades outside and how they proceed instead of watching the surroundings - therefore the idea of getting the outside world only through the perspectives of the gunner, driver devices etc. backfires heavily). Many pictures just scream (esp. the close-up into all those pain-torn faces - the woman, at least the director took the chance to show us some boobs ;)) - I am an anti-war movie, war is bad, war is cruel, lalala, to an extent that it is just getting ridiculous. Ofc a movie can or should have some message but maybe it shouldn't scream it out so loud one gets deaf by it (to the message). On top we get bored by watching the tank-crew endless debating and arguing over and over (soap-opera like). Verdict: at most an one-timer but imo far too artificial and unbelievable to be a good (anti-)war movie and a waste of a potentially good story/idea. Some directors should maybe watch a lot of the stuff on YouTube troopers in real combat publish from their helm-cams etc., before doing such an endeavor, or at least analyze the best movies of the genre. A movie the p.c.-crowd ofc tends to celebrate and decorate with awards. Myself had to use the last 20 minutes the skip button generously just to get the movie finished.

shoobe01 I don't even have to get to the story, much less the themes or worry about whether it's too blatantly anti-war, pro-Israeli or whatever your politics say. Ignore that. No, it just seems so very, very fake. Like it's an elaborate stage production. Such that I'd have been happier if it was obviously so. If the exterior scenes were all similarly staged it would have worked.What I mean is not minor gripes about detail: what tank their in, the amount of room, not wearing helmets, the tank being lower than a person, etc. Those are annoying, but not critical. No, I mean how the tank looks like a set. Different parts move, and they wobble like crew is behind it pushing it. Smoke, from starting or explosions, looks like someone off-stage puffed some smoke in. The grime is clearly not from action seen in the movie, but is painted on so is on the back of boxes and around corners and too consistent. It doesn't match much of the dialog or implication that they are in this indestructible device. Of course it breaks down over the course of the film: it's made of plywood and paint. This was only matched by the ham-handed characterizations, and the inexplicable inability of the crew to act human. Even before the first engagement (where it's like the gunner, then everyone, is being stalked by a horror-movie killer) they act like tween schoolgirls who don't want to clean their room. Forget soldiers, soldiers trained enough to operate a tank, what /adults/ act like this? Vastly, vastly believable, so impossible for me to understand or care about anything, or anyone in it.

paul2001sw-1 A low budget Israeli war movie, 'Lebanon' tells the story of a tank crew, but we hardly ever see the outside of the tank. At times, the continual world-view-by-periscope seems a bit gimmicky, although one suspects the main rationale for the narrow focus is not artistic but financial. It does help maintain the claustrophobic atmosphere, and the central section of the film fizzes with tension. But the most horrific moments derive from the presence of a cartoonish villain, and the centrepiece of the story - about ordinary men conscripted into the role of soldier for which they are ill-prepared psychologically - lacks the subtlety, context and heart of the sublime 'Waltz with Bashir', which of course bypassed the costs of recreating a war by the use of animation as a medium. That film is great - this one has some merit, but won't really tell you anything you don't already know.

Tweekums The film opens with a new crewman getting into a tank; from that moment to the final scene the viewer is effectively trapped inside the tank with its crew. The only views we get of what is going on outside is the restrictive view through the gun sight. When the film starts the tank, call sign 'Rhino', is in Israel but soon it is heading north into Lebanon where its crew will learn what war can be like. They aren't really aware why they have been ordered to go to war and it soon becomes apparent that some of them aren't really prepared for what they will be expected to do... as the gunner learns shooting at people is nothing like shooting at barrels! Their first encounter leaves one infantryman dead along with an innocent chicken farmer. When they get to the town which they believed to have been cleared things get tenser as they encounter more resistance than they expected and after the tank is damaged it looks as if they could be trapped in enemy territory.Inside the tank the conscript crew are bickering before they have even seen action with the loader moaning about being ordered to keep watch. Then when the action does begin the gunner can't bring himself to open fire when a car approaches which leads to the death of a soldier. It is clear that none of the conscripts wants to be there as they question just about every order given to them by the commander and by the officer who visits them occasionally to give them further orders.I can't speak for the realism of the film, but as its writer/director based it on his memories of serving in a tank in Lebanon I can only assume it is accurate... more importantly it works as a film. By only showing us what is happening in the tank and the limited view through the site the viewer feels the claustrophobia more than if we had regular external shots of the tank. What we do see through the sight is a snapshot of the brutality of war; a soldier bleeding to death, a woman left naked after her dress catches fire and a maimed donkey dying in the road. Director Samuel Maoz does a fine job bringing his story to the scene; as do the small cast of actors inside the tank. If you are looking for a war film which is about people caught up in the war rather than about gung-ho action you could do a lot worse than this.