Generation Kill is to war what Almost Famous was to the rock band scene – an outsider's account as he travelled with a bunch of grunts in the thick of the mess. In both, they're portrayed as 'how things really went down', but when you take into consideration writer bias, green-tinted memories and a natural itch to embellish, it's pretty certain that a few liberties were taken along the way. Well, it's entertainment, not a documentary, I suppose.

This is a 7-part HBO miniseries produced by the The Wire combo Ed Burns and David Simon, and adapted from Evan Wright's book of the same name, chronicling his experiences as a civilian attached to the First Recon Marine squad. These guys were tasked with spearheading the US invasion of Iraq, and through a curious series of events, seem to miss most of the action.

Since I haven't read the book, I can't account for how faithful it is, but a lot of these characters seem made for the screen. There's a healthy mix of efficient commanders, incompetent or overzealous higher-ups, (possibly gay) health freaks, wiggers, racists, ex-gangbangers and outright psychotics. Naturally, everyone's a cussing wiseass as well. That sets up wisecracks aplenty, even if a lot of them do turn out more than a little morbid.

“Hey, nice job shooting those camels, Trombley.”

“Uh...I think I shot one of those Iraqis too, I saw him fall.”

“All we saw was camels going down, camel-killer.”

“(reflective pause) Look, I didn't mean to shoot innocent camels, alright? I'm sure I shot people.”

“Look at this shit. How come we can't ever invade a cool country, like...chicks in bikinis, y'know? How come countries like that don't ever need marines? I'll tell you why! It's lack of pussy that fucks countries up. Lack of pussy is the root cause of all global instability. If more Hajis were getting quality pussy, there'd be no reason for us to come over here and fuck them up like this! Cause a nut-bustin' Haji is a happy Haji...”

“If there's no WMDs, then why are we here in the first place?!”

“I knew you were a gay-ass liberal! You tried to pretend by invading Iraq with us, but I knew!”

“I'm serious, Ray. Isn't that the whole point of us being here?”

“The point is, we get to kill people, you dumb fuck.”

The series walks a fine line, not condoning the war, but not going too far as to condemn it either. They don't shy away from showing how the US troops are fucking up life for Iraqi civilians, even killing a lot of them in their overzealous aggressiveness, but at the same time nearly all the Iraqis themselves seem to welcome Americana, chanting “America good. Saddam bad.” as the Humvees roll past their bombed-out neighbourhood. Anyway, props for not trying to simplify the portrayal of a knotty, messed up situation.

It's hard to completely swallow the level of incompetence that some of the commanders display while herding their troops into position. This is in stark contrast to the officers directly under them, who are naturally infallible by comparison, and painfully aware of the colossal stupidity of the orders being handed down. Makes for dramatic television, anyway. Another strange factor is that while the Marines are obviously the army's elite troops, they also seem to be the most woefully equipped bunch, gearwise. A constant refrain running through the series is 'Marines make do', providing an easy out for those charge of the supply chain. Then there's the incongruity of getting highly trained reconnaissance troops to trundle around in noisy, poorly-armoured Humvees. As one of the characters mutters, “I'm a hunter, not a truck driver for some mobile gun platform.” It seems weird that screwups of this order occur in what's supposed to be the world's most powerful army, but deep down, I could probably buy it.

The main problem as far as I see it is that since First Recon misses nearly all the action, we're left watching them in a long cycle of building up for a massive fight and having the whole situation dissipate by the time they get there. Hard to believe this happened so many times for a unit right at the tip of the invasion. What that means is that the 7 hours of viewing time are mostly spent looking at planning, downtime and largely event-free missions, and the series becomes more about the soldiers in the unit and how each of them deals with the experience. So, in a nutshell, you get to watch US grunts yakk nonstop and firing off the occasional shot or two. Bummer.

Where it shines is the production values – this looks as good as any big screen release these days. A number of directors handle each of the seven episodes, and they all do a commendable job keeping it sharp. There's also a hell of a lot of attention to detail, from the authentic-sounding soldier-speak to the weapon loadouts to the little factoids they drop from time to time. And since they have a n00bish reporter in their midst who's naturally always asking questions, it doesn't feel like they're schooling the viewer personally.

“Sniper. He's in front of us.”

“How can you tell?”

“You can only hear that clearly when you're directly in front of the rifle barrel. That zip...means it's passing a few meters from our ears.”

At the end of the day, you're left with a strange feeling that this wasn't what you expected when going into the series. It might be poignant that that's the same feeling a lot of soldiers had regarding the invasion, but a man can't live on the poignant alone. It just lacks the epic feeling of something like Band of Brothers, because in that war, there was no indecision about who was in the right, whereas here, things to get a lot more amoral. Still, Generation Kill works – the dialog is fairly sharp all throughout (except when they attempt profundity), the characters are interesting despite being a little cookie-cutter and there's lots to take home for combat/weapon/war nerds. I can think of a lot worse ways to spend 7 hours.