Because the deadly battle at Okinawa is yet to come, and Berg will spare us no bloody detail. (The script was adapted from the 2022 book of the same name by Buzz Bissinger, who also wrote the book that the 2004 film Friday Night Lights was based on.) More limbs are blasted off, more bullets end lives instantly or with agonizing slowness, more bayonets pierce tender flesh. War is hell, and Berg doesn’t want us to forget it.

In my early film-reviewing days, even before the existence of comments sections, I would sometimes get emails from veterans telling me what I had gotten wrong in writing about this or that war film. Most of those letters had a “Listen here, little lady” tone, but I didn’t mind them. The experience of watching a war movie is hardly the same as being in combat; it’s not supposed to be. Still, these guys had been to places I hadn’t. Even if they clearly didn’t understand my job, I’d have to admit to knowing next to nothing about theirs.