I would like it.
It all comes down to the director's perspective on it. The best way to get him a good perspective on it is to force him and his actors to go balls-down in the mud and do what snipers do, on a more "limited" basis since if you beat the Hell out of them they'll be afraid to do the movie.
It works for a shitload of game design teams and it worked (Saving Pte. Ryan is an example) for film crews.
I think that a large multicharacter'ed realistic military operation set in a real country using an existing military going head-on with another military that involves a fictional scenario can give you the best storyline for this.
Another thing that would be innovative is to have the camera follow around - say the Russians, for example - some of the "enemy" troops so that the audience would think they're "The good guys" for this movie. Then Bang-Thud, platoon leader goes down. Troops scatter, only subtitle I'd ever want to see is "Sniper!" and then camera cuts to the sniper team, ideally just as the sniper pulls the bolt back.
Realism makes a good film, makes a good game. You just have to be catering to a "smaller" group rather than the unwashed masses. If you're making the film for the guy who's trying to kick his skateboard over a jump, then it will "fail" in our eyes, but if you make it so that we think it's bloody well orgasmic, it will be "I don't get it" in theirs.
Unfortunately, due to the need to come out of it even or ideally on top, from a profit perspective, most movies are made for the guy outside.