Four football stars went to war

Director Peter Berg's film tells the true story of Dave Schreiner and Bob Bauman from Wisconsin, Tony Butkovich from Purdue, and John McLaughry from Brown, all drafted into World War II.

They thought war was like football

The four men believed they could win the war the same way you win a football game, with strategy and athleticism, only to learn how far off the mark they were.

The Mosquito Bowl, Christmas Eve 1944

The film's title refers to a legendary football game between two Marine regiments at Guadalcanal on Christmas Eve, 1944. Of the sixty-five men who played, fifteen were killed on the island.

Three of the four died in Okinawa

A few months after the Mosquito Bowl, three of the four main characters were dead in Okinawa. Berg spares no bloody detail in depicting the deadly battle that followed.

The football game is the film's heart

After brutal training and the battle at Tarawa, the men play the actual Mosquito Bowl, where they escape into versions of themselves that no longer exist. This is the most exhilarating section.

Berg shows too much violence

The director throws so much violence at viewers that it feels like padding. One well-placed depiction of combat atrocity can haunt forever, but less is more when depicting war's brutality.

“War is hell, and Berg doesn't want us to forget it.”

War knocks the boyhood out fast

War doesn't make a boy a man so much as it knocks the boyhood out of him fast. The film shows how young men entered combat believing they were invincible.