SUBMITTED BY Timbo

July 29, 2003 — CNN recently talked with Australian director Gregor Jordan about the controversial reception his film "Buffalo Soldiers" has been given:

Even the film's poster is catching flak. It shows star Joaquin Phoenix standing in front of a U.S. flag and flashing a peace sign under the words, "Steal all that you can steal," a phrase that mocks the popular Army slogan "Be all that you can be."

Jordan said the controversy surrounding his film is "obviously a product of the time," calling it "a time where people are being slightly hysterical."

He said that O'Connor's book is a bleak yet realistic depiction of what was going on in the military in the late 1980s.

Jordan said the author collected stories from a heroin dealer stationed in West Germany and did his own research for "Buffalo Soldiers."

"All you have to do is look at official Pentagon documents about U.S. military deaths between 1975 and 1990," Jordan said. "There were between 25 and 30 murders on these bases every year. ... There were 100 suicides every year. And this was during peacetime."

He said that time period is a bad patch in the Army's history and that the movie shows part of a crackdown on those problems. Read the full article at the link below.