heavy handed and overtly manipulative

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2005)

Considered one of the best anti-war films ever made. Robert DeNiro is Michael Vronsky a steelworker who is drafted and sent to Vietnam. The first part of the film shows his life in Pittsburgh with his friends Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage. Suddenly the film shifts to Vietnam where DeNiro and Savage are prisoners of the Viet Cong.
The film is not a pretty sight after that and the scenes of captivity are gruesome. DeNiro returns home but can't adjust. He returns to Vietnam to find Walken who by this time has turned into one of the walking dead. The movie gets even more unbearable at this point.
When this movie first came out I was very moved by it. I saw it again recently and thought it wasn't a very good film at all. The message was very heavy handed and the film was overtly manipulative.