As a writer, my time is split between nonfiction and fiction. My nonfiction deals with the lighting industry, which I’ve been writing about for magazines, associations, websites, and manufacturers for 30 years. So I was very interested in watching THE CURRENT WAR (2017), a film about the war between George Westinghouse and Thomas Alva Edison about whether AC or DC power would dominate American power distribution, as I was familiar with some of the history. The film does a good job dramatizing their war and I was happy to see this bit of history covered by a major film, though overall the result feels kinda tame, like a traditional TV movie.

The film starts with Edison’s commercialization of a viable incandescent light bulb and a DC power system used to feed electricity to these bulbs from generators. Edison is excellently played by Benedict Cumberbatch, basically reprising his eccentric genius Sherlock role complete with a Watson-like sidekick. While the bulbs are amazing for the period (they last 13 hours as opposed to two, the best anybody else could do), DC power isn’t very efficient, resulting in a huge number of generators and the air crisscrossed with thick wires. Enter George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), a railroad engineer who grew rich on investing an air brake for trains. He sees AC power as the future as it’s dramatically more efficient, but he doesn’t have Edison’s light bulbs. Westinghouse wants to work together, but Edison snubs him, starting a war to see which power system will electrify America.

Edison goes so far as to try to smear AC power as dangerous, electrifying animals in front of the press and supporting the invention of the electric chair. But AC power is clearly superior. All it’s missing is a viable motor that can accept an AC power input. Enter a genius named Nikola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant who has the answer. The rest, as they say, is history.

The film has a great cast and a lot of love went into bringing the period to life. I especially appreciated the topic, as the Current War is as dramatic as they come in terms of history, and it was fought by business and intellectual giants who were rapidly transforming America with radical inventions such as electricity, the phonograph, arc lamps, and motion pictures. The film does a fantastic job of creating a sense of wonder and how at the time a few great minds could change the world with science.

The film sags, however, in its storytelling. The writers tried to balance the human and business sides of the war without giving either the right height. The directing is also fairly staid, propping up the result with Scorcese-like visual elements (he was a producer) that feel utterly out of place and actually detract from all the effort made to create historical immersion. I also think they might have done better to give Tesla far more screen time, as he is such a fascinating figure who made science truly feel like magic. This is a guy who stood on a stage at the Chicago World Fair and electrified himself (safely because the frequency was so high), powering a forerunner to the fluorescent tube that he held in his hand. The film also doesn’t mention he got ripped off.

So in the end, this is another one I liked instead of loved. Overall, it’s very enjoyable and the history is great, though the telling somewhat sags with lackluster directing.

I spotted THE OUTPOST (2020) on Netflix and thought, well, here goes another predictable war movie about lovable, earnest soldiers fighting the evil Taliban with plenty of action and American grit, and I ended up pretty surprised to discover instead one of the best films about war ever made, at least in my opinion as a civilian.

Based on the book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, the film depicts the events surrounding the incredible Taliban assault against Combat Outpost Keating, one of a series of bases strung across the mountains near Pakistan to prevent arms and Taliban fighters from crossing into Afghanistan. It was that war’s bloodiest battle, which involved hundreds of Taliban assaulting the base with the advantage of the high ground. It’s the inspiration for a similar fight in my novel THE INFECTION.

Few war movies have the courage to tell it like it is and let soldiers be real people. GENERATION KILL did it, and so does OUTPOST. There’s very little hooah sap and “band of brothers” here. They’re just regular guys, and we see them interact with wit and the usual friendships and frictions you’d expect. They are also somewhat fatalistic, as they’re under constant harassment, the base is poorly situated surrounded by high ground, and they know a big attack is coming that they will likely not survive. But they’re professional soldiers and have a job to do, so they do it stoically.

The film gives us time to get to know the grunts as the CAV unit goes through several commanders, each with a different command style. The acting is strong and perfectly understated, led by a cast that includes Orlando Bloom, Caleb Landry Jones, and Scott Eastwood (the spitting image of his dad). Meanwhile, the unit’s relationship with the locals slowly sours, and the tension builds. When the attack finally comes, it’s absolutely savage–as exciting and powerful as the likes of BLACKHAWK DOWN–and this is where we see the hooah and band of brothers come out–naturally in the soldiers’ actions–as some fight back with incredible courage and others risk their lives for guys they serve with and sometimes don’t even like that much.

The film has been praised by veterans, including men who fought in the actual battle, for its depictions of everyday soldier life, war in general, and the battle in particular. The film made me care, had me on the edge of my seat, and respected my intelligence. I absolutely loved this one. While 2020 sucked in general, it absolutely shined for war films with the release of the likes of THE OUTPOST and GREYHOUND. I hope we get more like it.

Technically ambitious and completely immersive, 1917 (2019), co-written and directed by Sam Mendes, is a uniquely powerful war film that says, yeah, war sucks, but during war, people go above and beyond simply because they must.

It’s the last year of WWI, and the film opens with two young British soldiers assigned a dangerous mission by their commanding general. As communication wires have been cut, they must hand-deliver a message to a front-line unit that tomorrow morning will make a doomed attack, and stop it from going forward. Multiplying the stakes for these soldiers is the fact one of them has a brother serving as a lieutenant in the doomed unit.

What follows is a story told with the appearance of a single take, following the soldiers from their trenches across no-man’s land to abandoned enemy positions to bombed-out ruins, each of them a horrific set-piece of half-buried corpses and snipers and murderous Germans and burning towns. It ends up feeling like DUNKIRK with similar stakes as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but without all the yanking on the viewer’s emotions.

The single-take visual effect is amazing, making theater viewing worthwhile, and providing an immersive experience while lending an additional atmosphere of realism to the film. The world-building is incredible. Morally, the story hits the right notes–that heroism isn’t in killing and conquering but accomplishing the mission regardless of personal cost, and that in war, men owe debts to the dead and the living. You don’t cheer when one of the soldiers kills a German, you do when they survive and get the job done. I also really enjoyed another moral of the story, which is each act of heroism makes its small contribution but overall may not make a major impact on the war itself, which remains brutal and unforgiving and tomorrow, may undo all the good that was done today.

The film had a few negatives for me. A minor complaint was using stars for cameos, when minor actors would have been great throughout to better respect the immersive technique. Another minor complaint was a character running through explosions that are almost right behind him. My biggest complaint was the one-take approach had a tradeoff, which was long stretches of walking around until I grew restless watching it, and the realism of the dialogue meant I never really got to know the characters very well, which made me far less invested in them emotionally. I get it the movie didn’t want to be emotionally manipulative but instead invest the viewer honestly, but it could have traded just a *little* of that so we could get to know the characters and empathize more.

Overall, this is a powerful movie, true to its vision, realistic to a fault, and technically brilliant. I enjoyed it enormously, though I’m not sure yet if I loved it. In the end, 1917 completely satisfied my brain even if it didn’t capture my heart. I hope there are more war films like it and DUNKIRK, films that put you in war and let you think and feel for yourself.