I guess you had to be there...

Rating: Null/10 (3 August 2003)

I saw this movie recently, and as someone born in 1980 I wasn't around when this movie was released, much less when its story takes place. Therefore, I couldn't really connect to it on any significant level. It's not enough to read about and see movies to know what Vietnam was about - you had to have lived those times. And I had not.
The movie very much assumes that you just "know" what war was like in those days. There are a lot of unspoken emotional responses that the director assumes you can relate to. Well guess what, I can't really relate to them, and odds are neither can anyone who didn't live those times. The movie feels pretty empty when you can't really relate to what the characters are going through.
So, this movie didn't have very much impact on me. It required the viewer to make a personal connection with the characters, and I could not. I tried, but it just wasn't happening. I never had to go to war, or had to deal with its effects on anyone I knew, so I guess this movie just isn't for me.
I don't deny the movie's impact when it was released, as America still mourning the war, but 25 years and another generation later, it feels pretty hollow. Usually after watching a war movie, even though I wasn't there I learn something about how war was like, how things were. But after watching this movie, I felt like I had wasted my time... all I learned was that Russian Roulette makes for good drama (though it felt superfluous outside the P.O.W setting).
I guess you had to be there...
4/10