Kilo Two Bravo (♦♦♦♦½)

In September 2006, a British platoon in the Kajaki region of Afghanistan is making a routine patrol and encounters a minefield in a wadi. With several casualties and no prospect of an immediate evacuation, they make do with the personnel and medical supplies they have at their disposal.

It's been a while since I have said Wow at the end of a movie. Kilo Two Bravo is a war movie, and among the most realistic I have ever seen. I don't have artsy standards when it comes to war movies; I don't think, unlike most people, that Saving Private Ryan is among the best war movies ever.

I have never been able to watch war movies with the same eyes after seeing Black Hawk Down, Special Forces, or Zero Dark Thirty. Kilo Two Bravo, being based on a true story, certainly belongs in my Wow category.

A movie about a platoon that encounters enemy fire is nothing new, but when a movie reflects the scary moments of war that follow absolute boredom, then that's worth watching because you know is the real deal. Kilo Two Bravo puts in perspective a book I read relatively recently, The Shadow Patrol written by Alex Berenson, who spent time in Afghanistan to gain insight about soldiers' day to day life in a war zone.

Interlaced with desperate humor, Kilo Two Bravo ably depicts the horror of war, and the sacrifices made by men and women in the military to defend the freedoms we take for granted in the Western world.

The ladies who typically read this blog will probably shy away from this movie, but I urge the men in their lives to give this movie a try; if it doesn't make them cry at least it will make them think.