Jingoistic , violent, and ultimately a school-boy war comic

Rating: 4/10 (3 January 2017)

First of all I have the greatest respect for the real soldiers that this film purports to represent. The training depicted during the introductory titles tests them to the limit and sometimes beyond. Throw them down a mountain though in the way that we see demonstrated in this film not once but twice, and they will break. Shoot them in the head and they will die. Stick bullet holes in them and they will pass out from shock or from blood loss. Fill their legs with huge chunks of shrapnel and they won't be able to walk. Somehow his film seems to have bypassed a reality check by many viewers, I can't think of any other reason it scores so highly. The action is brutal and intense, but also constructed in a way that should be absurdly unbelievable for most people over the age of 15. The characterisation makes Top Gun look like a work of Shakespeare and the gung-ho sacrifice of a Chinook full of soldiers forced on at gunpoint into the battle by one of their own ranks right up there with Major Kong riding the bomb in Dr Strangelove. Watch Come and See if you want to know what war is like, and watch Top Gun if you just want entertainment. The only people I'd recommend this one for is for sound-editors and mixers.