of friendship, hidden motives, and the hazards of being slavish to dogma

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2019)

The film depicts the relationship between New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (played by Sam Waterston) and his Cambodian interpreter, fellow journalist Dith Pran (Portrayed by the late Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance). Although anybody can do a Wikipedia search on the people and the event and see what happened, it is the suspense and tension with which the events shown are presented that makes this a special film. It actually makes you feel "you were there" during the fall of Cambodia and the holocaust that followed.
Sam Waterston didn't do that many films before his signature role as Jack McCoy on Law and Order, but he gives an intense performance here. Shanberg is one of the reporters deciding to stay in the danger zone and report on the Cambodian civil war, and on American bad acts during that war. He needs Pran as an interpreter and guide in a place where there are literally no Americans. But then comes the imminent fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, and Shanberg tells Pran he has to decide if he is to stay or go. And the question explored later on is, given that Shanberg decided to stay through the fall of Phnom Penh, did he subtly influence Pran to stay because he needed him?
The genocide that followed the takeover of Cambodia by Pol Pot and his band are shown in all its horror. It makes me want to dig deeper and get the answer to the question - Did the American reporters who stayed behind just think that the Khmer Rouge were going to pass out lollipops and pat the little kids on the head and all would be hunky dory? This brings me to the hazards of being slavish to dogma. Pol Pot was a monster, but more than that he actually thought that these crazy ideas of his would work and instituted them en masse immediately. A good number of the up to three million dead in the three years that followed Pol Pot's rise to power were him actually believing you can transform a nation suddenly and completely and refusing to back down when he only brought ruin upon the land. But I'm sure he never missed a meal.
There are great supporting performances by a young John Malkovich as a fellow journalist, and I tip my hat to Spaulding Grey who made a career of his one man show and documentaries built in part, at least, on his small role here.
The thing that makes this really hard to watch besides the realistic horror of the war and the aftermath? There really are no "good guys" here. The Americans, the French, the Cambodian government pre and post Pol Pot, all had their hands dirty. I highly recommend this as this is practically a docudrama on the subject.