Worth watching

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2004)

"Their's is not to reason why. Their's is but to do and die"
Lord Tennyson sums up the spirit of this film so well...a film which is divided into two parts with each part being rather better than the whole. The first part concerns the transformation of raw recruits into marines, a process of dehumanisation into killing machines. In the second half we see a group of fully-fledged marines in action in Vietnam calling for tank support as they watch a couple of their buddies ripped apart by sniper fire.
The build up of hatred for the drill sergeant (R. Lee Ermy) is the main feature of the first half with a very dramatic and tragic ending. Extremely well done. As for the second half, good though it is, I never felt that what I was watching was actually in Vietnam. Never the less the sniper scene is exciting and tense. And what a surprise when the identity of the sniper is revealed.
Like most war films the message that comes across stresses the futility of war and the dehumanisation of man on his mad path of destruction.
It's a film worth watching if only to remind us that war solves few if any problems.