The most under-rated war movie since "The Four Days of Naples."

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2006)

Perhaps this film is underrated because it opened before screenwriter Terry George emerged as an important filmmaker with Hotel Rwanda, which he wrote and directed. It deserves another look. The script is smart, tight, with no shortage of morbid wit ("If I wanted to kill crackers, I'd have stayed in Macon," says Terence Howard, a lieutenant on trial for murdering a white enlisted man). It's also very ambitious, efficiently and engagingly exploring life-and-death conflicts without sentimentality. It works not only as a war movie (with harrowing sequences, and not forgetting that Russian POWs were treated even worse than Americans) but as a first-rate mystery complete with courtroom sequence and hugely satisfying denouement, layered with dramatic surprises.
Ultimately, the movie belongs not to any one actor, but to a character. There are dozens of truly great war pictures, but I can't think of another character, not even a real one like Patton, as fully explored as Col. McNamara (a solid Bruce Willis). He is the consummate career soldier, a constitute of courage, determination, leadership, physical and mental toughness, unflagging honor, and -- most impressive-- a commitment to cause that is revealed in strategic and resourceful military thinking that make this one of the most intelligent war pictures I can recall.