Delayed Reaction: The Tillman Story

Premise: An NFL player who enlisted in the army died by friendly fire and his family wants answers.

 

I wanted to come out of this movie more bothered by injustice than I did. The documentary tells a pretty infuriating story. Pat Tillman decides to enlist in the Army a year after 9/11 despite his successful football career. He becomes a hero to many for his willingness to sacrifice lifechanging money so he could fight for his country. When he dies in action, the Army concocts a story of valor and awards him a silver star. Then, shortly after, reporters uncover that it was a senseless friendly fire death that the government wasn't nearly as interested in telling. I really wanted to finish the movie and feel the way the filmmakers and his family did.

 

Maybe I've just been too beaten down by the system over the years, but I don't know what the family expected. I hate how the military (and the government and companies) has a hierarchical structure that diffuses blame. But I don't see what the family was really trying to accomplish.  Where should the blame for Pat's death and coverup fall? The overzealous troops who shot him? The commander over that unit who didn't teach them better restraint? How high up did they really think the coverup went? I doubt Pat Tillman was more the talking point to Bush or Rumsfeld. If they did agree to cover up the story of how he died, it was probably a passive decision they made. I believe that those generals at the end really couldn't recall exactly when they found out about Pat's death and coverup. I thought the point of the hearing was to make the generals all look like cowards for not owning up to their mistakes, but the family seemed to think they'd actually get one of them to say "I masterminded the coverup". It's not clear to me by the end of the movie what the family actually wants.

 

I know this is a movie about fighting bureaucracy and the way we lionize versions of people rather than the real people. However, it feels like this movie is using Pat Tillman too, just in a different way.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend