Important moral dilemma

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2008)

Brian De Palma's Casualties of War is one-part Vietnam commentary, one-part moral dilemma. The film manages to illustrate the horrors of war with some visceral visual effects, and the same time also pose the crucial question; how would you react in the situation in which Eriksson finds himself? The setting largely plays second fiddle to the moral question posed - this is not a film about the politics of the Vietnam War - and it is around this that much of the film is centred. The isolated environment of a long-distance mission in a small squad raises, and accentuates, the issues of peer pressure and moral-abandonment perfectly. This is undoubtedly the film's strongest point and greatest message.
Surprisingly, i found some of the performances and dialogue a little disappointing. The character of Sgt. Tony Meserve, played by Sean Penn, was particularly bemusing. Clearly intending to portray a kind of brilliant but sociopathic soldier, he came across more handicapped half-wit and it truly stretched my limits of believability to convince me that this man was put in charge of an infantry unit. A very disjointed performance by Penn indeed. Michael J Fox's character Eriksson, suffered a little from the sometimes overly-sentimental script which at times seemed thoroughly incongruous with the sobering environment and moody score. It's harsh to typecast Fox, but his virtues-of-steel persona didn't come off too well for me and i couldn't help but see his usual, jovial self lurking just beneath the facade.
A heavy, but watchable war movie, handled with skill by De Palma but with a flawed screenplay and some lacklustre performances.
6/10.