Major flaws, with a long movie wrapped around them

Rating: 1/10 (5 July 2006)

Clearly, there are many people who value this movie. I have no problem admitting that I just "don't get it" -- as long as those who like this movie are open to the idea that, just possibly, there is an elephant in the room that they are overlooking. Actually, from some other comments, it looks like some other people have seen the elephant, but think that it fits well into the room.
My case rests on the fact that this is meant to be a "serious" movie, but I have had less trouble suspending disbelief with the X-Men than with this movie: if the main characters had escaped from the Vietcongs using their super-powers, that would have left me less uncomfortable than what I have seen in this movie.
Some other IMDb reviewers have mentioned the extreme improbability of Nick making a living out of playing Russian roulette professionally. But the weirdness does not end there, because his buddy Michael returns to Vietnam to rescue him from his insanity. How? why, by playing Russian roulette with him, of course! You might think that this is the action least likely to bring the two of them back together to the USA -- and you would be right, because Nick shoots himself during the game. The way it looks to me is that Michael unwittingly ends Nick's successful career.
The earlier escape scene is also absurd. It makes sense that Michael and Nick plan to escape by using the gun they are supposed to play Russian roulette with. It makes sense that they figure they need three bullets to escape. It might even make sense that, before starting to fire at the Vietcongs, they want to be sure that the next chamber has a bullet in it (although the way they make sure would mean a very likely failure for their plan, in real life). But why did the Vietcongs let them keep a gun with three bullets ready to be fired? The escape plan boils down to hoping that the Vietcongs will let them keep a loaded gun, if they survive Russian roulette. Nothing wrong with trying; but the scriptwriters should not have allowed them to survive both the odds of Russian roulette and the odds that at least one of the Vietcongs would use his brain.
The Russian roulette scenes are surreal. Watching them, I could feel no suspense whatsoever, in spite of the characters screaming themselves hoarse: I simply could not suspend my disbelief. I had the uncomfortable feeling of missing something: perhaps they were playing some other game that looks a lot like Russian roulette, except that the person with the gun knows whether the next chamber has a cartridge in it. That might help to explain both the escape from the Vietcongs and Nick's survival as a professional player, but it would introduce other difficulties, such as Nick shooting himself.
Now, all of the above comments are about the Russian roulette scenes, and it might be said that i am overlooking the rest of the movie: that this is not a war movie, but a movie about the trauma of war. Maybe so, but suppose that you had seen the movie without the Russian roulette scenes: would you think that the movie could be improved by adding a few silly scenes?
For me, the addition of silly scenes means that i must take away one or two points from my rating. My rating is already pretty low because I "don't get" the rest of the movie, and in addition because I had high expectations for this movie and was disappointed; so i am giving the minimum rating to the movie as a whole.