My Review of "Bennett's War"

Bennett's War popped up on my Netflix suggestion. I really don't know why since I haven't watched too many inspiration stories for a while. Netflix has been right many times so why not check it out? I was in for a ride with this one.

This movie starts off in the middle of a war. The main character Marshall Bennett is in the thick of it all as part of some motorcycle military unit. Some of his fellow military friends recognize him because he's won some dirt-bike races in the past. Apparently he could have gone pro but wanted to serve the military instead.

They then go directly to some mission that they don't really explain. Marshall and his military colleague get into a gun fight that results in them trying to escape by dirt-bikes only to get blown up.

He awakens in the hospital to hear the bad news that he won't be able to use his foot anymore because it's broken so bad he can't use it or something. Then an odd thing happens. He doesn't seem to have any PTSD about the whole situation when in reality I would have thought such an experience would have scarred him for life. He was basically told that his friend is pretty much going to die after the incident.

Instead he gets mad that he can't use his leg. This could have been a coping mechanism. I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt until he discovers that he can feel pain in his foot again so he hops onto his old dirt-bike again and guns it hard. At this point I was in full disbelief as to what was happening in this movie. I've been in accidents half as bad as he was in and I still get flashbacks. How is this guy able to get back on a dirt-bike so easily.

The craziest thing is he notices that there's some amateur dirt-bike race and there's this up and coming racer that's pretty much going to go pro. They kind of mock Marshall in this shop that he works at so Marshall goes to the competition to compete.

First of all he hasn't even recovered from the accident from the war. He hasn't raced in a handful of years. His bike isn't even tuned for the race and the craziest thing he doesn't have any fear of going back on that treacherous course. The course looks crazy and there's huge jumps and hills that he has to go through in order to finish the course. The race is also 20 laps! A normal person can't go 20 laps going half the speed of these racers.

So knowing all that guess what happens in this race? Yeah you guessed it, he won. Get the heck out of here! This was some crazy Disney understanding of reality. I have no idea what they were thinking when they were writing this movie. It really has no connection with reality and I really had to shut off my brain in order to really take the movie in.

On the plus side, I recognize that it's a low budget movie. For what they had they did an okay job. I was at least able to follow what was going on and was able to watch through the whole thing.

There were also some messages of good and bad. Cheaters are bad and do what you're passionate about or else you'll be a miserable turd of a person. Yeah I guess that's a message but not everyone has the pleasure of having natural given talent to be able to defy medical problems and having cheat codes for any competition that they're involved in.

Overall, despite my gripes of this movie it was watchable. It was obviously meant to be an inspirational movie but the fact that it was so unrealistic didn't help me get inspired. I have to give this movie a 5 out of 10. It's a passable movie but I would not recommend this movie to any of my friends.