Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Clearly, it's not appropriate to begin this review by criticising the three main actors who were indeed the real participants. So credit to them in the first place for doing what they did and also to Clint Eastwood for this new daring act of cinematic bravery. Sadly, the idea fails quite miserably and all involved should be held responsible. However, you would expect more from Eastwood. So the movie, as I see it, is in three acts and hopefully you don't regard my basic description of these acts as spoilers. If so, I apologise. Act One features the childhood of the heroes. The beginning offers a few enticing moments that we hope will give us some insight into the characters. Unfortunately, it doesn't much, falling flat and rapidly descending into cliched depictions of youngsters with burning dreams. It's nice to see Pam from 'The Office' pop up and do a decent job as one of the mothers but, with Eastwood appearing to keep to the truth with noble intentions, it nevertheless fails to develop and therefore feels empty. The appearance of a 'Full Metal Jacket' poster in one of the boy's bedrooms offers a little window into the thematics that the Second Act wished to partake in. That is to say, it introduces the theme of the training and maturation of the three heroes, heavily weighted in favour of the character of Spencer Stone. Again, the blunt reality of an honest story fails to entertain as a film and even Stone's determination to join the military feels almost irrelevant. Eastwood's stoic refusal to 'make stuff up for an audience' is admirable but so dull that it begins to feel like a made-for-TV documentary. And then, towards the end of this Act, it becomes little more than watching someone else's holiday snaps. I desperately wanted to fast-forward this part but, being on-board a United Airlines flight at the time, I've always found the touch-screen controls too fiddly. The Third Act is the act of terrorism itself which is featured in flashback form in the earlier acts. There are no surprises and no twists...because life generally doesn't do that. Contrived, it ain't, but nor is it remotely entertaining. Read about this event in the newspaper instead and salute the heroes involved but don't embarrass them by trying to make them into actors. To this end, I hate criticising the film but it's got to be done.

Skip through 70 minutes to watch true heroism and how these characters became heroes. Incredible story that will make you proud to be an American. But the music, and early scenes of how the guys grew up as trouble makers could have been done much better. The introduction of the girl in Italy who was only around for a few scenes was pointless to the story. I understand it was true and actually happened, by my point is, give her some depth as a character. Strange to make a movie out of an action scene that took about 5 minutes.

Don't get me wrong I love a good Marvel hero! And I've got a great joy watching a good action movie. So I was ready to watch something good, something fun, something like a Django in a train... It wasn't it. So I understand that a lot of people feel cheated and disappointed. I don't. This a great movie. It reminds me of Elephant in a good way. We feel like we're with the boys. There's something real in this movie. It seems that Clint Eastwood is free to do whatever ever he wants and this freedom is inspiring. There's purity in this movie instead of the darkness that news, post apocalyptic movie and Tv show spread all over our mind. It's an author movie, like it or not it's great!

I think the intent of this movie was to tell an inspirational story and about how a boy becomes a man that becomes a hero. However, when I left this movie, I didn't feel any heroism. The plot starts off mildly interesting, and then scrambles off into random nothingness. The majority of the movie was meaningless and didn't really relate to the movies purpose. The only action was during the final moments of the film; too late to create an effect. There was no "building up" to the climax. It also failed to create the "this actually happened" feel. Overall, a disappointing, boring movie.