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Interesting…that's currently on my "to see" list. I've heard nothing but great things about it. Can you talk about what was so disappointing for you?
First off, as a former tanker that served in the Middle East the portrayal of the dark, dank, grungy environment is pretty spot on technically. Fluids in the bottom of the turret, spent shell casings, sounds, make shift 'conveniences', etc. The use of space is too big but I imagine necessary from the standpoint of cinematography. Das Boot gave a proper sense of space and claustrophobia that Lebanon failed to inside a tank.
Secondly, either that is the dumbest tank crew in history or Israeli tank conscripts really suck at fighting wars. The gunner spends more time looking at dead animals and hanging sides of meat for that contrived sense of 'war horror' than looking for targets trying to kill his unit. There is no understanding of what the mission is, how to do it or what to do when things go wrong. It's like dropping off the kids from detention in Breakfast Club into a tank in the middle of Lebanon, ridiculous. Then a tank with WORKING comm and radios gets lost and separated from its unit with no idea where they are?? This climaxes of course in the driver just romping the tanks accelerator w/ the crew screaming to get out of dodge by smashing blindly through a wall? Apparently, not one person in the movie can read a map either. Kind of a big deal in war. There's fog of war, then there's stupid. The movie is the latter.
The character development is weak as well. Just when you think you are going to get some understanding of why the crew behaves the way they do, it ends and you have the same moronic twits you started out with. There is one moment when the tank commander loses it and you think he is going to go Commander Kurtz but, nope, it never happens. He just turn into a living cadaver after giving himself a nice shave.
There are only two good scenes and everything else is crap. Actually make that three. Not going to tell you in case you do see it. The movie was just incredibly unrealistic and pretentious. The sense of suspense is manufactured. The presentation of moral complexities is redundant and too few and far between. It was less a tank movie than a movie about 4 lost idiots romping around wartime Lebanon w/ a camcorder. So much wasted opportunity and potential in this movie. Could have been one of the greats if handled the way Coppola or Kubrick would have. I felt it was the easy way out everytime w/ this movie. Only civilians of a certain political viewpoint could possibly find anything gratifying about this movie. Arthouse B-movie IMO.
