Mark Steyn writes another typically wonderful column about the dearth of honest storytelling in Hollywood, due to the pervasive choke hold of political correctness. Perhaps that is why biopics like last year's Ray and the current Walk the Line stand out. They can be at least somewhat honest about the lives of artists. The warts make for interesting moments.

News comes to us via the London Sunday Times that Bruce Willis is planning to make a movie about the Iraq War which will portray American Soldiers, specifically the Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry. Blog readers are already well—familiar with this unit die to the blogging of Michael Yon. Deuce Four, incidentally, would make a great title.

Curious, isn't it, that American MSM outlets haven't publicized this. But perhaps they fear that readers might start reading Yon instead of their own news pages for information about the conflict.

This film project (it is in the very earliest stages) has the potential to be another breakout milestone film, on the model of The Passion of the Christ. There are scores of millions of Americans who long for just such a film. Many of them never set foot in a cineplex. And despite spoon—feeding by their own anti—American media, I suspect that many overseas viewers would find such a film fascinating, assuming distribution would not be blocked in their markets. Willis is a potent brand name action star all around the world.

One of many reasons Hollywood is doing so poorly is that it flinches in the face of reality when politically incorrect conclusions are to be drawn from the facts. Thus, no honest films about 9/11, no honest films about Afghanistan, and no honest films about the central subject of our day, Iraq. Audiences may be accustomed to low standards, but they are not stupid. They stay away from dishonest films about events which they know something about.

Such a film as Bruce Willis proposes would, in addition to other considerations, be the first movie ever inspired by a blog. If it does well (as it surely will if competently executed), it could help rescue Hollywood from its Dazed and Confused approach to storytelling.

Thomas Lifson  11 27 05