Retired US Army officer and urban-warfare researcher John Spencer rates 11 urban-warfare scenes in movies and TV shows for realism.
Spencer breaks down the accuracy of ambushes and battles in open areas in "Black Hawk Down" (2001), with Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Sizemore; "Fast Five" (2011), with Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, and Paul Walker; "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" (2016), starring John Krasinski; and "Mosul" (2019). He looks at fighting in buildings and close-quarters combat in "Extraction" (2020), starring Chris Hemsworth; "American Sniper" (2014), starring Bradley Cooper; and "The Raid: Redemption" (2011), starring Iko Uwais. Spencer addresses the effects of urban warfare on civilians and cities in "Captain America: Civil War" (2016), with Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., and Scarlett Johansson. He also looks at urban operations during World War II in "Fury" (2014), with Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf; and "Enemy at the Gates"(2001), with Jude Law and Ed Harris.
Spencer is a US Army combat veteran and has been on two combat deployments to Iraq. He is the chair of urban-warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and the author of "Understanding Urban Warfare," "Connected Soldiers," and "The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender." Spencer is also the host of the podcast "Urban Warfare Project."
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