Some good touches but far too polarised, simplistic and at the end - cheesy

Rating: Null/10 (16 March 2002)

`Cherry' Erikson arrives in Nam and is assigned to Sgt Meserve's unit. When they can't get into town to go to a whore house on the eve of a long patrol, Meserve kidnaps a Vietnamese girl to take on the patrol and use for sex. Erikson is forced to take a stand in the face of rape and brutality that he can't believe  however what's a crime in war time?
De Palma is a great director when he's on form  untouchables is a class film and Snake Eyes shows that he can rise above material to deliver style. However here he has no action set pieces to work with and the real drama is a moral one. This causes him to fall down by painting too simplistic a picture of good and evil. The story follows Sgt Meserve's hate driven unit as they capture a girl to service them sexually while on patrol. New member Erikson is portrayed far too wide eyed and innocent and the gap between the two men makes it too much to accept  it takes away the very element of debate and merely tells us what we already know.
The official denial of the event is helped by Ving Rhames explanation of justice, but other than this it's all too black and white. The simplistic nature continues right up till the ending where Fox achieves some sort of closure by meeting a young girl on an university campus years later. De Palma delivers horrible visions and disturbing scenes of rape and brutality  but outside of the shock value there's nothing to do but shake your head and say `how could this have happened'.
Despite their characters the cast are good  Penn is powerfully convincing as Meserve and Fox manages to carry the wide-eyed youth easily. The support cast is made up of quality  John C Reilly, Leguizamo and Rhames head it up and all three are on top form.
Overall, it's a powerful film and you can't help but be moved by the cruelity and injustice inflicted upon the Vietnamese girl. But with the moral debate of wartime atrocities reduced to a picture of black and white then it can get a bit dull at times.