We, to whom this "Croatian George Washington" was presented on Croatian TV, could not find anything surprising in this American version of Obrad Kosovac's [school of propaganda]. We know director Sedlar, we know the script writer Hitrec, and thank God but he shouldn't have!- we also know the main character in this propaganda movie. Therefore, it would be boring, disgusting and senseless to list all the lies about Tudman and everything around him, which he repeated yet again, some of them straight to the camera and some through the words of his hagiographer and the words of the narrator, American actor Martin Sheen. Similarly, it would be foolish to simply to ignore this film and classify it together with numerous crude propaganda works which glorify our Great Leader.
Tudman's lie is not a simple propaganda trick. His lying is unfortunately pathological and thereby he, as every sick man, must first convince himself that he is healthy. And a pathological liar can only feel healthy if he can impose his personal lie as historical truth.
The basic Tudman's problem is that he cannot reconcile with himself, that he stubbornly believes that he can change his life by fixing up his biography. All that, naturally, wouldn't be worth attention if Tudman could keep that problem to himself and thereby allow it to assume realistic proportions - enough to fit on a couch. But, when he imposes the inability to reconcile the inconsistencies in his biography on all of us and tries to turn his personal problem into a platform for the reconciliation of the nation, the couch becomes too small and the sickness becomes universal. Then, all the historical truth simply serves to take care of a personal lie which has in the meantime infected almost everything around us. Tudman may feel somewhat better as the result of that therapy, but the rest of Croatia, with the exception of Tudman's courtiers and the incurably gullible people, definitely feels worse.
The advanced stage of the sickness becomes evident just before the end of the movie, when Martin Sheen ridicules Walter Reed hospital and says: "At the peak of his success, Tudman suddenly fell ill. He went to Washington for special medical tests, but the diagnosis was never made". If the patient feels better because of that lie, let him be, although I have never heard of anyone who undergoes a treatment without a diagnosis. Tudman, it is his prerogative, doesn't even have to believe in the diagnosis stemming from "Croatian George Washington" and can pretend to be glowing with truth. Why not, when he has already succeeded in shifting the recent national history to the wastelands of his own biography?
Tudman unintentionally warns Croatia about what awaits in the future when with the automythomaniacal glint in his eyes he says that even when he was in jail he was convinced that he would receive the same adulation as Josip Broz [Tito], and that a commemorative plaque with his name would one day be placed on the walls of the prison in Lepoglava. If he perseveres on the Tito's path, Tudman could give us the same gift as Tito, who in the "Croatian George Washington" is referred to as the Yugoslav dictator. Namely, a prison with a commemorative plaque.