'Generation Kill' documents the Iraq war

by Katie Fretland

HBO describes its new upcoming miniseries "Generation Kill" as a true account of how Marines in the first 40 days of the Iraq war battled the enemy, as well as "equipment shortages, incompetent commanding officers, ever-evolving rules of engagement and an unclear strategy."

The miniseries premiering Sunday is based on the book by journalist Evan Wright, whose story first appeared as a condensed series of articles in Rolling Stone. Wright was embedded with the Marines of the First Recon Battalion.

The show was produced by the makers of "The Wire," the HBO series about drug-dealing and police/government corruption in Baltimore.

At a recent screening, Wright said publishing the articles in Rolling Stone after he arrived home from Iraq--instead of as events happened--allowed him to write freely. He did not have to get back in the Humvee daily with the Marines after they had read and judged his work. Wright sat next to a Marine who often talked about his desire to get his first kill.

Producer David Simon said the series is not pro-war or anti-war.

"It's just an account of something," he said.

If a moment in the miniseries appears to have a political edge, that is because the true moment had a political edge, he said.

Here is what critics are saying so far:

"The drama is all in the staging and cutting, and in the almost musical alternation of long stretches of relative quiet with passages of brilliantly rendered violent action," writes Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd. "The camera work rarely calls attention to itself. There is no music apart from what the soldiers sing themselves as they ride along (and Johnny Cash singing the apocalyptic "The Man Comes Around" over the last minutes of the last episode)."

"It's nearly impossible to tell anyone in the beefy ensemble cast apart," writes the San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman. "Military jargon flies everywhere without explanation. The direction -- purposeful, we come to find out -- seems to be telling 10 nonlinear stories at the same time."

"It is a true story of combat and male bonding, but it is told disjointedly and atonally, perhaps because it pursues clashing goals," writes The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley. ""Generation Kill" tries to honor the ordeal -- and the humanity -- of its heroes while exposing the futility of their quest."