second half rarely gets enough praise..

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2007)

while the first half of this movie is absolutely first rate, and has actually led to a lot of well known and used popular one liners, my most recent viewing of this film made me appreciate the second part a lot more than previously
this section was actually shot in an old disused gas works just a few miles from my home town, and people from school used to go there to collect shells etc..
the reason i like this section is that it focuses on urban warfare, whereas just about every other Vietnam movie ever deals exclusively with countryside/rural settings. actually control of the main urban centres was vitally important and clearly a deciding factor for the eventual outcome of the war.
anyone that has been lucky enough to visit Vietnam since can get an idea of what it might have been like to fight in areas such as this, and while Kubricks vision doesn't try to provide realism it gives a hyper-real flavour for this setting.
using the old beckton gas works was a master stroke in my view. the stark imagery is fantastic. and luring troops into 'deserted' urban areas, to be held off by small numbers of troops and snipers would seem like a realistic and effective tactical setting
a lot of the dialogue is fake in this section, but you'd have to feel that it is intentionally so. it provides a TV/documentary style that captures the bizarre essence of the photographers and camera-men present during the conflict, and the unreal/odd footage that those people were likely to have obtained
overall the latter half of the movie has a weird aura about it, emphasised further by a stark soundtrack. you can literally hear every move the soldiers make, every footstep, jangle of a water bottle or grenade. i also love the grating/thumping and sparing 'musical' accompaniment used here
no one has made a perfect and unbiased movie about Vietnam at this point, but this film takes a unique and interesting slant on it, avoiding cliché