MovieChat Forums > The Guys (2003) Discussion > I liked this film a lot

I liked this film a lot

posted 20 years ago by Niccalo
3 replies | jump to latest

I was quite offended by the comments posted by Fredrik Olsson (drsnap):

"fake-patriotic crap movie"

Tonight while it was slow at work I was able to watch The Guys (2002), a movie about a Fire Captain who enlists the help of a writer to prepare the eulogies for 8 men his Firehouse lost in the Septemper 11th attacks on the United States of America. How their lives, no matter how long he worked with them, affected him; and those that he worked with. From the Probies, to the seasoned veterans.

While watching I had to think how hard it is for the families of those that lost their lives and how they must endure everyday to put their tragedy behind them, to push through counting the minutes, the hours, the days, and months since all of their lives, our lives, were so drastically changed from a carefree existence to one of confusion, hatred, and fear. Yet what have I lost, nothing. Nothing compaired to the nearly 3,000 who died when the twin towers fell on New York. Nothing compaired to the 3,000+ families who prayed that this wasn't happening to them, that this was all some sort of a dream. That this hadn't happened that this was a movie they were watching on the television screen. In the 1,096 days that have since followed that evey day for them has been a challenge to make it to that next day. That their sacrifices are no different than that of the soldier that gives his life on the battlefield. And then I see how selfish I have become; because for me each day is a distance that I have been able to place behind myself to say that what happened was so long ago. Then I was reminded tonight about the moments I am able to spend with my loved ones that those that have lost cannot. I am lucky, like a lot of other people that usually take our lives for granted.

We as a country, cannot ever forget the morning that our lives were forever changed, September 11th will always be apart of our lives today, and the infinite number of days that follow.

[–] Bauer745 18 years ago

I cannot add anything more to what you said, but I do agree completely.

[–] SnowMoonFalling 17 years ago

I just saw this. It was wonderful, very moving. Anthony LaPaglia said so much with his expressions which leant incredible weight to the stories behind those lives that were lost.

"Ciao!"--Eddie Izzard

[–] SnapePrince 14 years ago

I agree, it wasn't a "fake-patriotic crap movie".

Have it at a 7/10. And I'm telling you because I am not american and I felt identified and moved with the stuff.

I was surprised to see this film in a cable TV channel from Spain... and surprised to liked it and cry and laugh plenty of times with it. I'm from a big city (Madrid) that also has the wounds of a big unexpected terrorist attack that hit the metropolitan society hard (and still recovering of the trauma of a fatidic 11-M).

I'm not from the USA. So I admit of having a problem with all the patriotic selfish stuff that came from there all the time, and full of grandiloquent and ultra-patriotic situations and cliches (the film products of this tragedies are usually too much of egocentric, picturing the USA always as the saviour of the world or the only society with morals and captable of suffering with rightness).

But this one actually felt tremendously identifying with the feelings that came after an upside-down shock in a so much established order (an no matter the geological origins of that shock, the sentiments are common and universal).

So yes, I finally found a 11-S drama that turns to be universal identifying because it's only based on post-traumatic feelings (well performed and developed with honesty) and not in a corny cliches of a country with a superiority complex.

Sorry for my english.