Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (3/8/25)

Schlock and Awe is back. Evan and Jack are home from the wars (their day jobs) with a look at Ang Lee’s 2016 adaptation of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, a coming-of-age movie set during one heady day at the Dallas Cowboys stadium, as an army unit is pulled out of their deployment to Iraq to do a propaganda tour in order to support a flagging occupation. Joining us is podcaster, writer and Army veteran Nate Bethea, who shared his experiences managing large numbers of 19 year old Army infantrymen. The lads dive in to a muddled, chaotic film that succeeds as much as it fails, and does both in spectacular fashion, encapsulating some of the most surreal moments of the Global War on Terror and a B-plot love triangle between a brother, a sister, and a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.