Anti-War movie AND fun action movie???

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2002)

I think BHD wants to be two sorts of a movie:
1. An action movie for the entertainment of the audience. In this point it does very well and any action fan won't loose his money on this flick.
2. An anti-war movie. It really tries to be an anti-war movie, showing the misery of modern war and in many scenes you're well reminded of Saving Private Ryan.
BUT!!!
A movie just can't be a good fun action movie AND a good anti-war movie. These two kinds of genres bite each other and BHD kind of gets ridiculous with that. In the beginning of the movie all the M-60s, AKs and MGs are shooting around and, of course, no one of the Americans gets hit. But, of course, the bad-black skinnies (that's really what they are called in the movie) fall down like rabbits. Really cool to watch! About after the half of the movie you see a lot of American blood, which is a plus for the realism, and the crappy, scary feeling of war comes over you. But then there are two major things missing to be a real anti-war movie like Apocalypse Now, Platoon or Saving Private Ryan: A story and some characters. They just didn't have time to be set up in the other half of the movie. So when you leave the theatre don't really know anymore what you've seen.
Hey! You there! Hollywood, yes you,
PLEASE do not have directors of great movies like Alien work with producers of crappy movies like Pearl Harbor.