ForbesOnTech

Zero Day-- Great Film About a complex topic, Reinstituting the Draft

I seldom write seriously about films or politics. The reason for the lack of posts about the former is that I grew up in southern California and had an inside view of the movie business that forever colored my view of that industry as a meat grinder. The reason I don’t blog about politics is that I believe politics are a very private matter.

Also, I’ve watched people read me completely wrong when they find out I voluntarily enlisted in the Marine Corps in the mid-Sixties. For some reason there is an assumption that service in the Corps means you’re an unthinking automaton, reacting axiomatically to every situation. My service in the Marines, especially as I progressed up through the ranks, taught me a lot about critical thinking and deeply ingrained values like duty and honor.

Yesterday, wandering through BlockBuster Video on an afternoon trip to Escondido, I came across a new release I had heard a little about and was intrigued enough to rent. The Movie is Zero Day and it’s about the individual decisions the young male members of Gen X and Gen Y would have to make if the draft were reinstated. I watched the movie late Tuesday night and thought a lot about its message all through today.

I remember good friends saying they wouldn’t report for induction if they were called. And I remember some of the horrific fights some of my friends had with their fathers, most of whom were WWII veterans when my friends told their parents they couldn’t serve in “an unjust and illegal war.” By and large, most of my friends answered the call of their draft boards and reported for induction. A couple of those guys have their names on the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial Wall. And every time I’m in DC, I stop by and say “Hey. Buddy!”

Zero Day does the best job I’ve ever seen in any film of showing the complex range of emotions draftees experience. It has some great acting and phenomenal directing and doesn’t play morality games.

The plot of this movie centers around the reactions of three young NewYork Men who have been ordered by their draft board to report for induction on a specific day. The plot of this movie deals with a draft that cuts across all social classes and for which there are apparently few exemptions. One of the characters is an attorney from a family with political connections. He succeeds in getting his father to contact a family friend in the US Senate to get him out of the draft.

Zero Day’s plot and interwoven story lines make this a great movie, I believe. In the end the viewer is left with a great image of young men from a generation that’s never been asked to sacrifice suddenly forced into an uncertain future. With two exceptions, this is a movie that doesn’t have a contrived, stereotypical, resolution. It does make you think and it’s good enough to suspend your sense of disbelief.

I keenly remember the attitudes and general craziness surrounding the draft during the Viet Nam War. A lot of my generation were called and served.

Working in Silicon Valley for 35 years, I became acutely aware of how few of my same-age male friends served in the armed forces. Looking back, I can remember meeting only a small handful who served.

The all-volunteer status of our current military is a direct result of the tumultuous anti-draft movement of the 1960s. One of the problems an all-volunteer army creates is that it doesn’t really represent a cross section of American Society.

Thinking about the movie and projecting forward. I think I know what I would tell my Godson, AJ, if he asked me about the draft. If that scenario ever arises I believe I would tell him: He has to make a decision he can live with; And, Honor isn’t something that’s axiomatically granted with a college degree or a good conduct discharge. It can’t be bought at a membership department store, or at an up-market exclusive club. It’s something you learn and earn and sometimes it involves personal sacrifice.

Zero Day is one of those movies that you may want remember to rent. It left me thinking and I recommend it highly. There, I didn‘t tell you what my personal politics are. Did I?--Jim Forbes 02/276/2008

A DVD Recommendation: "The Darwin Awards"-- You'll Laugh

Sometimes I decide to put together a two or three movie film fest. The object of most of my filmfests isn't watching obscure cinema with subtitles. Rather it's most often to make me laugh.

So rather than take my Blockbuster.com outgoing flicks to the post office i went to my local BBV store, picked out three DVDs and exchanged my just-viewed films for tonight's  film fest.

My first choice was made solely on its title: "The Darwin Awards." Frankly, I was curious to see what a film maker could do to the often darkly humorous stories of people's passing improves the general gene pool. I didn't expect much and the movie didn't challenge my expectations for the first 35 minutes.  First up was th yahoo who made the mistake of taking a retriever on an ice fishing trip where he used a stick of dynamite to clear a whole in the ice. His dog sees the stick of dynamite land on the ice, retrieves it and deposits it under his just purchased SUV.  You can imagine the results. Then came the sequence about the good ole boy in the Nevada Desert who outfitted his car with a surplus  rocket motor and gained fame by turning two tons of Detroit iron into an unguided missile that impacted 300 feet up a mesa near the seldom traveled highway. Then came the two dudes who found an unconventional way to see a Mettallica conference. Seriously baked, the two dudes actions earned their position on the Darwin list. This is a "no name" movie, but if you want a few minutes of teary-eyed laughter, it's worth renting. check it out.