London Film Festival: The Tillman Story

Documentary time again at the LFF, and this one's got a war face.

That impossibly lantern-jawed fizzog will be recognisable to any fans of American Football out there (obviously there's a natural crossover between film blog readers and NFL enthusiasts), but for the benefit of everyone else it belongs to Pat Tillman, who played for the Arizona Cardinals, whatever they are, before enlisting in the army and being booted off to Eye-rack and Afghanistan, where he was apparently killed by the Afghan militia in an ambush.

That's right conspiracy fans, there may or may not have been a cover up in the investigation into Pat Tillman's death that goes - yes, I'm going to say it - RIGHT TO THE TOP.

While the Tillman story is fascinating, The Tillman Story is only quite good - it's clumsily structured, goes on a bit and doesn't properly address the issue that it hints at - the peculiar need that people, countries and governments have for heroes. However it does reveal the farcical tragedies of war and the shameful actions of governments, and leaves you in awe of Tillman's formidable mother, who has all but devoted her life to getting an apologetic drop of blood from a decidedly stony US administration. It also features a soldier called Bryan O'Neal, which is challenging not to chuckle at when the subject matter is so sombre.

And just so you don't spend the entire film trying to work out who's doing the voiceover like I did: It's Josh Brolin, who only recently played George W Bush in Oliver Stone's biopic W.

The Tillman Story is showing at 6.30pm on Wednesday 20th October and 3.30pm on Thursday 21st October at Vue Leicester Square, and at 9.00pm on Saturday 23rd October at the Ritzy in Brixton.

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