Brutal and Realistic Depiction of War-Torn Cambodia

Rating: 8/10 (7 April 2003)

The Killing Fields follows the story of A New York Times journalist, Sydney Schanberg, and his Cambodian translator, Dith Pran. Schanberg is there to report on Cambodia's border being bombed by the U.S. during the last years of the Vietnam War. These bombings make Cambodia vulnerable to the takeover by the Khmer Rouge regime, which becomes Schanberg's new story.
Schanberg and his colleagues are journalists who want people to know what really is going on as opposed to the watered down/non-existent radio/TV coverage about Cambodia's problems. John Malkovich's photo journalist character makes a snide remark about a certain BBC reporter who must sneak reports past the Khmer Rouge soldiers in the beaks of chickens that somehow make it to Thailand.
Schanberg gets Pran's family out of Cambodia to America as the American Embassy and everybody else is getting out of Cambodia because they know that the Khmer Rouge is going to takeover the capital city. But Pran stays behind with Schanberg. Pran sees the Khmer Rouge parading through town and believes there might be peace, but his hopes are dashed as the Khmer Rouge soldiers kidnap Pran and the journalists for awhile. Things in Cambodia go from bad to worse, and the journalists are given one last chance to leave, but no Cambodians can go. The journalists try and doctor a passport for Pran, but it fails. Schanberg and the other journalist believe Pran will die at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Malkovich blames Schanberg for Pran's fate. Schanberg begins to symbolize America in the way we bombed (used) Cambodia (Pran) and left it behind just when they needed our help.
Disturbing scenes of children caring guns, a young girl suffocating a prisoner, and skeletons floating in a ditch show the atrocities of this dictatorship. Somehow Pran manages to survive in a prison camp--where he is starved, brainwashed, and tortured. He finally escapes and reunites with Schanberg.
There are some scenes in which some subtitles would have been appreciated. The Killing Fields has been criticized for leaning to the left in its view of what happened in Cambodia, and I agree with that. It's really amazing that a movie like this ever got made considering the Hollywood machine. I recommend The Killing Fields for fans of Vietnam movies. And considering our times now, it is certainly interesting viewing.