Trailer
Plot summary
In October 2004, army specialist Billy Lynn, 19, is filmed in Iraq dragging a wounded Sergeant Virgil "Shroom" Breem to cover during a firefight, and the footage makes him a national hero. He and the other soldiers of Bravo Squad come back to Texas and begin a publicity tour arranged around the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game, with producer Albert Brown trying to sell their story to Hollywood. Billy remembers destroying the car of the man who walked out on his sister Kathryn while she was in the hospital with scars from a crash, the act that landed him in the army. At the stadium, cheerleader Faison introduces herself, and a psychiatrist Kathryn contacted telephones about a discharge that could keep Billy out of Iraq.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk used an unprecedented shooting and projection frame rate of 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K UHD resolution, which Lee terms the "whole shebang". It is the first feature film ever shot in a high frame rate, over twice the previous record, Peter Jackson's 2012 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, shot at 48 fps.
- Joe Alwyn was cast just two days after he left his drama school, London's Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. He put himself on tape, then met Lee in New York City, where even after the screen test Lee had some trouble casting him or any other people.
- The soldiers onscreen endured weeks of Navy SEAL-style boot camp training so they would look like real soldiers. They were given guns with special springs that added a recoil when they shot blanks, a feeling that often left them shaking.
- Only five theaters in the world were equipped to show the film at its highest resolution and maximum frame rate: New York City's AMC Lincoln Square, where it had its world premiere, Los Angeles's ArcLight Hollywood, and one theater each in Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai.
- Since no make-up was allowed, make-up artist Luisa Abel spent months of preparation on the cast's skin tones. According to Lee, Abel "found this silicone-based makeup because we found that it can see through skin."
