How could this happen?

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 2002)

The Vietnam War is something that I think we are all trying to forget. Young men, who weren't even over the age of twenty-one, were exposed to unspeakable horrors. Thousands of young men died, hundreds of others were physically and emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives. What makes this fact even more relevant today are all of the war movies that Hollywood has been producing recently. These movies include "Born on the Fourth of July (1989)", "Hamburger Hill (1987)", and the much recent "We Were Soldiers (2002)". All three of these movies are based on true Vietnam survivor stories. "Born on the Fourth of July", the first of these films I'll talk about, starred Tom Cruise. The story was about Ron Kovic, an all-American teenager who went to Nam, with high hopes of being able to serve his country proud. Not even a year into his first tour of duty, Ron was wounded and was paralyzed from the chest down. He returned home and endured a very unpleasant stay in a veteran's hospital. He comes home only to discover that he may not be very welcome because of fighting overseas. Despite all that, he would soon go on to become an anti-war activist. Even though he lost the ability to ever be able to walk again, he had not lost his will to live a good life. "Hamburger Hill" was about a platoon of soldiers who were trying to climb a hill that once conquered would be a crucial strategic point in the war. These brave men endured enemy fire, as well as friendly fire, pouring rain, an ever-growing sense of dread, and unbelievable loss of manpower. Still, aside from all of these elements of tragedy, they were eventually able overcome that hill. "We Were Soldiers", the most recent of these films, which starred Mel Gibson, was about a group of soldiers, primarily young fathers, brothers and sons, who were able to fight bravely despite being surrounded by enemy forces. Even with all of these excellent war films, we've forgotten something. All of these films glorify soldiers overcoming powerful odds and tragedies and they've all been portrayed in a positive manner. So what happens when our American soldiers become something that we could never imagine? Keeping this question in mind, this brings me to Brian De Palma's forgotten war drama, "Casualties of War".
The main story of "Casualties of War" is that it is a morality tale. A platoon of five soldiers goes into a Vietnamese village on a reconnaissance mission and kidnaps a young girl. They then proceed to rape her. One of the men refused to go along with the others. After the rape, the young soldier tells the girl that he's going to try to get her out of there. The other soldiers while trying to escape catch him. Then the platoon, with the girl still in tow, proceeds on their way. They then encounter enemy fire. In the fray, the young soldier sees his chance to try to get the girl out of there. The platoon sergeant sees the girl trying to escape and then orders the other men to shoot her. They do so and the girl falls to her death. After the incident, the platoon returns to base camp. The young soldier who refused to go along with the others then reports to his lieutenant about the incident. He's informed that something like this could severely damage the United States military and it's position in the war. The other four soldiers are tried in a military court and are sentenced to lengthy prison terms for the crime. The incident was never mentioned by anyone after that. It was not until a newspaper article, which a book then followed had been published about the incident that it would ever be brought to public attention.
This is Brian De Palma's best movie behind "The Untouchables". I'm surprised that this movie hasn't gained the attention that it so righteously deserves in the long period of time that it's been on video. Brian De Palma doesn't shy the camera away when it comes down to the rape scene. We see the young girl screaming and we also see all of the men's reactions to the horrors at large. I actually had to turn my head during the rape scene. "Hamburger Hill" is another forgotten war movie that hasn't gotten much attention either. The reason that movie is so good is that it shows men at their greatest when things are at their worst.
Michael J. Fox, who plays the new recruit, Eriksson, is excellent. It was nice to him a really good serious role for once. I think that performances like the one Fox gives in this movie are rare. Sean Penn, who plays Meserve, is a monster in this film. We see a war-torn veteran, who is only trying to survive his last few weeks in Vietnam. When a friend is killed in an ambush, this causes Meserve's already stemming hatred for the Vietnamese to go even further. It is now that we see Penn go into overdrive. He is so intimidating, that as one viewer already claimed, that it's easy to see how a weak person could easily come under his control. The supporting performances I think are some of the best. Don Harvey and John C. Reilly both give great performances as the two soldiers who basically follow Meserve's every command. John Leguizamo, who plays Diaz, the newest soldier to the platoon, is great in an early performance. You see, when Meserve first says that he and the rest of the men are going to rape the young Vietnamese girl, Diaz decides that he won't participate. Diaz says that he will back up Eriksson when it comes down to it. Eriksson agrees that he will back up Diaz as well. When it's Eriksson's turn to rape the girl, he looks at Diaz to back him up. Meserve, Clark, and Hatcher then begin calling Eriksson names like "fag" and "queer" when he refuses. Diaz, seeing the kind of ridicule that Eriksson just went through chickens out and goes into the hut with the girl.
It seems to me though, that Diaz is the only soldier out of the four that anyone can ever really have any sympathy towards. I mean you have to feel sorry for him especially even though it wasn't really his fault for going along with the others in the rape. If you think about it very carefully, you'll realize that he was FORCED into the rape. This is a very debatable topic here because obviously Diaz is a person with morals, something the other three soldiers lacked. Of course, one could easily blame him for not using common sense for going along with the soldiers, but what you have to understand is that it was peer pressure that made him do it. All that happened was that he simply cracked under pressure. Another thing that you have to remember is that this is set during a very stressful time and it's easy for anyone, even a person with good morals, to commit an unthinkable act. Why do you think good people go badly all of a sudden?

I agree with one previous viewer that the Vietnam War truly brought out the worst in our American soldiers. I've heard horrible stories about some people who claimed that the only reason that they enlisted into the United States army during that time was so that they could kill Vietnamese people. I know of one person who says that if he were of legal age, he would sign up to go into Afghanistan, just to kill some "f*****g Arabs". It is exactly this kind of attitude that leads to atrocities like the one depicted in the film. How many things like this really happened during the Vietnam War more so, the war in Afghanistan? If so, how long will it be before they're brought to public attention? I mean it took, what how long for the incident in "Casualties of War" to be brought to public attention, two years? Two years may not seem like much, but think about the family of that innocent girl who was wrongfully taken away from her home and was forced to service four out of five soldiers. How those four men raped that young girl and then killed her and not have any regrets whatsoever is beyond anyone.

I think myself and everybody else, who has studied the causes of the Vietnam War, knows that the whole thing was a big mistake. As stated above, young men were exposed to horrible conditions and were fighting a war that they are not even sure should have been fought. I've heard that some soldiers did not even know why they were fighting.
So in conclusion, I really love this movie, but it's obvious that some people will hate it. I think that before someone says, "this movie sucks!" that it would be best to keep some of these things in mind. Things like morality and the differences between right and wrong are all topics that need to be kept in mind when viewing this film.