Did you realize that on August 14, 2008 as the world was watching the opening day of the Olympics in Beijing, a war began as Russian troops crossed the border into Georgia? Maybe you did, but I didn’t. I’m ashamed to admit, I didn’t even know the war happened. Directed by Renny Harlin, 5 Days of War follows the fictional story, based on real events, of reporters who are caught in the middle of this chaos and must find a way to survive as well as inform the rest of the world of the tragedy. Thomas Anders (Rupert Friend, who could be Orlando Bloom’s stunt double) is an American journalist who, with his cameraman (Richard Coyle, A Good Year), is caught in the middle of the conflict and after rescuing a young Georgian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui, HBO’s Entourage), help her find her family. Witnessing terrible destruction and the murder of innocent people, they try desperately to broadcast the truth.
What I liked most about the film was the relationships between the characters. Even though they are all out for their own stories, the group of reporters are friends and do look out for one another. Their shared passion gives them an ability to understand each other when faced with extreme circumstances, and they all have the ultimate goal of documenting the truth, and in that, they are able to help one another.
Getting to know the characters is not based on dialogue, but on action. Most of the dialogue that is in the film is very light and casual, but where you really get to know them is when they are faced with conflict and must act. Each actor shined in this and was able to convey a level of humanity in 
desperate situations. The main character of the story, Thomas Anders, embodies a perfect lead character in that he didn’t want to lead, he just had to. This reminds me of Clive Owen’s character in Children of Men. It’s amazing what people can do when they have to.
Andy Garcia as the Georgian President spoke English most of the time, and I’ll admit, I was sort of put off by it, but after reading up on Georgian culture, it seems they prefer English as of lately. I wish this factoid would have been included as well as some sort of familiarisation of Georgian culture and geography.
One character that I found completely useless was Dean Cain (he was Superman on Lois & Clark) as the Georgian President’s member of the International Press. He didn’t seem to serve any purpose and because it was Dean Cain, I was thinking it would be more of a role.
The film is non-stop action and just when you think it’s going to settle down, it gets even crazier. Watching the film is like a marathon and it gives you a small taste of the chaos that is war. My only complaint would be on the technology end. It really wasn’t clearly explained and I found it a little troubling.
With all the ways technology enables us to get information, it also enables us to filter it out. For years, we watched our shows on TV, then at 10pm (or 11pm EST), the shows stopped and we watched the news. That’s the way it was. Then 
slowly, more channels were added; specialty programs made it easy to turn channels before the news started, thus skipping over the events of the day. Now, unless you seek it out, it’s very easy to avoid the news entirely. I myself get most of my news from Gawker, Jezebel or, oh my, Facebook. I get AP alerts to my phone for major events. I don’t watch the news everyday, and I also hate to admit, I have very limited knowledge of the war the U.S. is in, at this very moment. This film really made me realize that I need to know more about the world around me. Just because it doesn’t effect me directly, doesn’t me it doesn’t effect me at all.
Rating: Eye opening and powerful. 8/10
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