This most impolite of directors attacks the most polite of genres in a way that makes it feel like her own creation, and pays tribute to her source by bringing it so ferociously to life
‘People aren’t as evil-minded as they were when you were a soldier, Papa,’ purrs 14-year-old Emmy (Diana Lynn) to her dimly suspicious father (William Demarest), though certainly she must know better
Studiously neither pro-war nor anti-war, this ‘anti-sending-me-to-war-book’ rather too appropriately evidences reluctance to see actual combat, expending nearly two-thirds of its length establishing Ayers’ coward credentials before setting off on the road to Baghdad.