The Tillman Story (2010), by Amir Bar-Lev, tells the story of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who died in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. The film portrays Tillman, a professional football player who volunteered for military service, as a strong, complicated, and deep-thinking individual, and the facts about his death hit hard. Two witnesses to the events of that April 22, Russell Baer and Bryan O'Neal, (above) are particularly important to the documentary. Their words provide a balance to the official account given to the Tillman family and infuriatingly retold at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings (third still). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and retired generals Richard Myers, John Abizaid, and Bryan Douglas Brown present a thoroughly unconvincing set of lies to Representative Henry Waxman and other members of the committee (third still). Tillman's family (and the film's audience, by now completely on their side) mutely observe the sad and disquieting congressional inquiry.
