The Tillman Story

"Pat isn't with God, he's fuckin' dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead."

—Richard Tillman

There's something profoundly angering and depressing about the sight of top U.S. Army generals lying their asses off before Congress with the Grim Reaper-like visage of Donald Rumsfeld egging them on. For anyone who caught the hearings on C-SPAN or watches Amir Bar-Lev's ferocious and infuriating documentary about the craven cover-up of Pat Tillman's death, you can't help but feel we're living out the American version of the Fall of Rome. That probably sounds a bit melodramatic, but one thing The Tillman Story makes absolutely clear: Our leaders have completely lost the ability to feel shame or take responsibility for their actions.

Bar-Lev's frustrating, funny and moving film is a valiant attempt to rescue the NFL-star-turned-soldier's identity and legacy from the clutches of self-serving politicos, media outlets and even the ignorant masses. All wanted a piece of him, and all projected their own agendas — political, religious or personal — onto his persona. It's a credit to Bar-Lev's film that Tillman, whose reasons for leaving the NFL and joining the war effort were kept personal, emerges as a real human being instead of just an iconic symbol.

Critical but not overtly political, The Tillman Story aims its sights at the recently sacrosanct U.S. military and blasts away, revealing a deep well of dishonesty and arrogance. A good portion of the film is dedicated to the underhanded machinations of those who viewed Tillman as a propaganda tool — something the young football star seemed to worry about. Using talking heads, archival footage, and factual inserts, the movie lays out the tragic details of his death and the ensuing efforts to hide and manipulate those facts.

There is little doubt conservative film reviewers like Armond White and Kyle Smith will view The Tillman Story as slanted anti-war agitprop. Their arguments are easier to forecast than the plot developments of the next Hostel movie. But whatever critical contortions and factual nitpicking they go through to mask their cynical agenda, there's no arguing the basic facts: Pat Tillman was killed by men in his own convoy. The U.S. Army endeavored to hide the facts from his family and public, then tried to cover up the cover-up. The Bush administration used the tragedy of his death as yet another opportunity to sell their war efforts. And the media, through incompetence, politics or gullibility, was complicit at enabling their deception. Even after the military's most obvious falsehoods were revealed, little was done to uncover those who orchestrated it and hold them responsible.

While Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That) does a decent job of laying out the callow behaviors at the heart of this conspiracy, the strength of his doc is the context it provides. Tillman emerges as a far more complex and interesting figure than you might realize, challenging mainstream America's ideas about both sports and war icons. Thoughtful, earnest, brash, independent-thinking and an atheist, the impact and influence of his personality on those around him makes clear that Tillman would never fit the Bush administration's pro-military, right-wing fantasy of American heroism. Instead, the former NFL star struggled to reconcile his instinct for patriotism with a corrupted military mission.

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