THE DIRECTOR MISSED HIS OWN POINT

Rating: 5/10 (29 July 2001)

This movie became popular and vastly overrated because most viewers thought it was the first time that Vietnam had been put in the perspective of actual American soldiers and not politicians.
Well it tries but then loses itself because of unrealism and I'm not talking about the combat scenes.
The idea of showing an American deer hunter transposed into an entirely foreign land faced with "trip mines", "boobytraps" and a totally unknown enemy is what this started to be. But we have Robert DeNiro with his full beard parading around as some kind of typical American when no draftee was allowed facial hair unless he had a skin desease. That sort of takes some of the realism out of it from the 'get-go'. Then we have the 'russian roulette' game that was only rumored about at the time and just adds a nauseating aspect to the film.
The acting is fine and the helicopter scenes amidst the elephant grass are realistic but the director lost touch with the theme.
We were not the evil large civilized force picking on the poor ragged asian minorities. We were ill-trained foreigners invading a foreign country, ill equipped and not trained to fight foreign soldiers on their own turf, who would have slaughtered us without the benefit of our air support.
This film was nothing more than a try to show that American soldiers were not just "baby killers' as so many of the anti-war protesters of the time claimed. We were people too but the movie misses badly.
This does not even resemble the magnificent film "Platoon" or even come close to the vastly underrated "Go Tell the Spartans" with Burt Lancaster.
Over publicized garbage akin to the "The Green Berets" only with better acting.
** Stars out of 6, because of the acting and cinematography.