One of De Palma's best

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2003)

This is a highly stimulating film which challenges all the traditional notions of morality - when does a victim become a perpetrator? How far can we excuse people's behaviour because of circumstance? Ultimately, De Palma tries to show that during war, the line between baddies and goodies is not as clear cut as we would believe.
The theme is totally centred around Penn and Fox, the former being the ostensible "baddie" - a common, sadistic, murderer of an innocent Vietnamese girl, but who is the best soldier of his platoon and whose bravery at the beginning of the film saves Fox's life. He is admired only in the field, outside of which he is a common, unsavoury nobody. After losing his friend to the VietCong, Penn savagely rapes a girl, whose only crime was to be associated with the villagers who harboured the VietCong. He then manipulates his henchmen to kill her - being too cowardly to do it himself. The line between grief and recklessness, understandable in wartime, and pure sadism becomes blurred. It is difficult to believe that the girl was murdered because he mistakenly believed she was VietCong. Rather, she was easy pickings.
Fox - the ostensible "goodie" - is a quiet, gentle, family man, conscripted into the Army, where he doesn't want to be - the antithesis of Penn. However, his gentle, trusting nature endangers his own life and possibly the lives of his comrades (he naively accepts food from the villagers and helps them farm their land, whilst they are harbouring VietCong). Fox is the only person to make a stand against the brutal rape, but he is too cowardly to save her from being killed. Indeed, he does not report the murder until his own life is threatened, a life which was originally saved by the man he reports. Although racked with guilt, his character is ultimately on nobody's side but his own.
The weight attached to these two characters is immense and both Penn and Fox made very good performances. However, Penn's performance was vastly superior. He was every bit as coarse and vulgar as his character should be, yet charged with vulnerable energy. I found Fox rather average - a typical all-American "goodie", whose moral outbursts were slightly unconvincing at times.
Supporting cast were also very good, particularly Leguizamo, who played the backstabbing "ally" to Fox. Le was also good, but her role was limited to a lot of hysteria. It is interesting to see that her character's name was never mentioned until her body was found. Reilly and Harvey were also limited, and Harvey's attempts at being "hard" were irritating beyond extreme. However, they served well to support Penn.
A very good film, which produces a variety of responses every time you watch it.