THE TILLMAN STORY (2010) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Amir Bar-Lev
There's that old saying that the first casualty in war is always the truth. Case in point: Cpl. Pat Tillman, whose friendly-fire death in Afghanistan in 2004 was being covered up and lied about within moments after it occurred. The lies continued for years and went all the way to the top, and that's what this documentary ends up being about. As a famously hard-hitting defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman was the most widely recognized enlisted man in the war. His death gave the Army a chance to rally public support with a tale of battlefield heroism that, like the reported exploits of Jessica Lynch, had little or nothing to do with reality. What the Army didn't count on was the tenacious resolve of Tillman's family, especially his mother Mary, to find out what really happened. What they found out wasn't the fiction the Pentagon wanted people to hear, and the spectacle of Donald Rumsfeld and the top brass citing collective amnesia and wiggling off the hook before a congressional committee with the family in the room just a few feet away is revolting. You'd like to see them all in jail. But more than anything, like the Tillmans, you just wish they'd finally tell the truth.
