A great, if sad, movie

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2003)

Casualties of War is a excellent movie based on certain events in the Viet Nam war. Michael J. Fox does a fantastic job as the fresh, idealistic, rookie who is caught up in the (arguably) most terrifying situation imaginable. Sean Penn also does a great job as the main villain. The movie is centered on a group of American soldiers kidnapping, raping, and murdering a young Vietnamese woman, and Michael J. Fox struggling with the decision on whether to report them and be called a traitor by his comrades or to do nothing and go on with life. Sadly, this movie is not fictional; it is based on several other events like it that took place during the war. During the movie, it becomes obvious that while Captain Meserve (Sean Penn) is a good soldier, he has become corrupted by the war and seeing so many of his friends die. Private Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) also comes off as a caring sort of person who does not belong in war. The director did a excellent job at capturing the feeling of emotional struggle and the feeling of helplessness.
(WARNING; SPOILERS AHEAD) During the movie, I noticed how quickly things heated up, especially after the platoon is at risk of the Vietnamese discovering them because the poor Vietnamese girl is sick and coughing; or after they are at risk of other U.S. forces seeing the girl from a helicopter. Michael J. Fox conveys a sense of helplessness as his Captain brutally mows down the girl with an M60 machine gun so that the helicopter doesn't see her, as Eriksson's his scream of rage is drowned out by her scream of pain.
All in all, this movie is defiantly worth watching, even if it is hard to do so at times.
I give it a 4.5 out of 5