HBO scores a direct hit with 'Generation Kill'

USA TODAY, July, 2008 by Robert Bianco

Generation Kill

HBO, Sunday, 9 ET/PT

**** out of four

Here's one cure for the problems ailing HBO: Just let David Simon and Ed Burns do whatever they want.

Having already provided HBO with one of TV's greatest dramas in The Wire, Simon and Burns now give the network its first great miniseries since Band of Brothers. Based on Evan Wright's acclaimed account of the invasion of Iraq, the seven-part Generation Kill is what you'd hope for from the people behind The Wire: an honest, barely adorned, sometimes painfully vivid representation of life as we live it now. It's journalism converted to art, with both benefiting.

As in the book, we follow Wright (Lee Tergesen) as he's embedded with "recon" Marines. He's along for the ride; so...