Review: The Tillman Story

One of the tasks of sports journalists is to bring the human side of athletes home to the fans. With the rise of blogs and increased accessibility to anyone's ideas, a rift has grown between traditional journalists, who have sworn on a sacred parchment to uphold a strict ethical code, and online journalists, who can write whatever they want without having to answer to a boss. But as traditional sports media has proven over and over, just because a journalist has a press pass and is allowed in a locker room doesn't mean he or she will portray everyone fairly. Think of the spin around Ted Williams. Williams should have been known as a classic American Hero, piloting planes in two wars and being a star on the field, but he was frequently lambasted in the media because he was ornery and held grudges. He famously only won two MVP awards, falling short even in two Triple Crown years as some writers whom he had shunned left him off their ballots entirely. More recently, we've seen reporters ignore rumblings about steroids in baseball until the elephant in the room was too gargantuan to ignore, and we've seen journalists base their careers upon negative, unfair portrayals of athletes as the adage "any publicity is good publicity" holds true. But we've also seen the increased access to knowledge and information, and the increased connections between people made possible by "new media" make a dent in the walls of what the official story is supposed to be.

It was with this in the back of my head that I watched The Tillman Story, a documentary that gets to the truth behind the numerous spins put on the life and death of former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman. As I'm sure most readers know, Tillman was a star safety for the Cardinals who gave up a multi-million-dollar contract to nobly join the Army Rangers and fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban. Except he wasn't a star, really—he was a seventh-round pick who had become a starter through hard work, and while he showed plenty of promise, he wasn't (yet) a Pro Bowler and only had three career interceptions. The contract he so nobly gave up to serve his country was of course more than most people will make in their lives, but not enormous for a pro football player: $3.6 million for three years, on the low end for a starter. And even his reasons for joining the Army are only speculation, as he specifically refused to discuss them. Unfortunately for Tillman, it's impossible for our media circus to simply respect one's requests for privacy, especially when there is so much at stake.

The movie spends much time dissecting the narrative that Tillman was boxed into after he was killed by friendly fire in April of 2004. As you know, it was first reported that he was killed by enemies after being ambushed, which of course fit the heroic archetype the powers that be wanted him to fill. It was not until three weeks later that further circumstances of his death were made public, and as we see in the documentary, his family is still searching for the truth to this day. We follow Tillman from his childhood through his college career and through his time in the Army. We see footage from his private life, and then are given a detailed analysis of the circumstances surrounding his death. We see the government dodge questioning and inquiries, and watch the mainstream media leap to conclusions and then backtrack as Tillman and his family don't fit into their assigned roles.

The film does a good job of telling the Tillman story from a point of view sympathetic to his family, yet still detached—at no point do we delve into Michael Moore-style sentimentality. Staying away from showing crying mothers and confronting those the film attempts to expose, as lesser filmmakers may do, in fact makes the film's argument stronger. At no point does director Amir Bar-Lev engage in any of the tactics that his opponents in traditional media and the Army did: ascribing qualities to Tillman without evidence, changing details, or otherwise trying to shoehorn him into something he wasn't. It's through this direct filmmaking that we remain engaged in the story and perceive the story as accurate. While it would be tempting for Bar-Lev to take Tillman's interest in Noam Chomsky and his comments on the Iraq invasion and portray him as the opposite of the official narrative, he refrains from doing so and makes a more convincing movie.