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Pat Tillman, the National Football League star who was killed in Afghanistan while serving in the U.S. Army, is the subject of a new documentary called "The Tillman Story." He walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals after the events of September 11th to go join the military.

Tillman's first tour of duty was in Iraq and when he returned home, he was quite disillusioned with the war.

His agent successfully negotiated a deal that would give him an honorable discharge and return him to the NFL, but Tillman felt he needed to honor his three-year commitment to the Army, and so he was sent to Afghanistan.

Initially, the accounts of Tillman's death were heroic, saying that he had put himself on the line to save his fellow soldiers during a Taliban ambush.

It turns out that those reports were completely wrong. Tillman was killed by friendly fire, by members of his own platoon, and what followed was a huge cover-up.

Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev makes the point that the the false story of Tillman’s heroic death was used to make him a mythical figure while building support for the war.

Even tough Tillman’s family was lied to, the circumstances surrounding his death didn't quite gel with them. So they plowed through thousands of pages of documents and came up with a mission of their own.

The film chronicles the Tillman’s family’s efforts to get the truth out, and there are interviews with his parents, who led an intense fight to reopen the investigation.

The director also talks to soldiers who were there when Tillman was shot and he utilizes a lot of interesting archival footage to tell the story.

For those who are not that familiar with these events, it is an eye-opening documentary, and for those who have followed it, the film still manages to be quite affecting.

Neil Rosen's Big Apple Rating: 3 Apples