Defending the Truth

I never realized how good the 1970 film Kelly’s Heroes is.

I remember the name of this film from my younger days but only came to appreciate it when I saw it again, with fresh eyes, last year. It stands out all the more because social values have changed to such an extent, and it will be considered immoral by certain sections of society.

On the face of it, the film, set at the end of WWII when American forces advance across Europe, is about a bank robbery. Kelly (Clint Eastwood) discovers the behind-enemy-lines location of a hoard of German gold. He resolves to steal this gold and gets together a bunch of likeminded soldiers – the heroes of the title – to steal it.

That’s only on the face of it, though. In order to keep the gold for themselves, Kelly and his heroes must evade not only the Germans, but their own commanding officers. And for good reason. For if these commanding officers got wind of the gold, Kelly and his gang know full well that they would simply pull rank and take the loot for themselves.

The real thrust of the film is its portrayal of those in power – in this case the commanding officers. They are presented as underhand and deceitful as well as downright incompetent. Not complementary in the least. However, while it might not be complementary about those in power, it strikes me as entirely authentic. And what’s more, I suggest that people at the time this film was made, KNEW this portrayal is authentic!


Contrast Kelly’s Heroes with the film I watched the other night The Sum of All Fears (2002). This, briefly, is a CIA Jack Ryan film in which a nuclear bomb is detonated, and destroys, a US city. The US government suspects the Russians are behind the bomb and relations between the two powers deteriorate to the point where the US president is about to sanction a nuclear strike against Russia. This will, of course, provoke the Russians into nuclear retaliation. In this film, however, those in power, the US and Russian presidents and their retinues, are presented to us as not only competent, but caring men and women. This is demonstrated by their selfless anguish over the cost in lives of the ‘difficult’ decisions they have to make. B****cks! The only part of this film which struck me as authentic was when the US president is among the spectators of a football game and, when his bodyguards get wind of the imminent nuclear explosion which will destroy the stadium and the people there, the immediate response is to leave the crowd to die while they rush the president to safety.

The Sum of All Fears is pretty typical of a modern portrayal of those in power. A much more flattering image than that presented nearly 40 years ago by Kelly’s Heroes.

But which is the truth? I know what I think. There’s been a whitewash job done. The powers-that-be didn’t like the truth. They didn’t, and don’t, like it when their motives and (in)competence are revealed for what they, are as opposed to how they would like them to be portrayed. That’s why we don’t get films like Kelly’s Heroes any more and have to put up with the whitewashing in films such as Air Force One and the Jack Ryan movies. In the 60s and 70s we KNEW the reality concerning those in power. Today’s younger people do not because they have never been exposed to the truth – political correctness has seen to that.

So, what do you think? Has there been a whitewash job done by those in power? Which film realistically presents the psychology of power?