The Ultimate Ensemble Cast For a War Movie

Rating: 7/10 (18 September 2006)

A cast of many B-grade actors (or at least no Cruises or Pitts or Hankses) tries to overtake a hill in the Battle of Guadalcanal. There is fighting, death and explosions, much as you'd expect from a war movie.
I will first say that Netflix lied to me because it said the stars were Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn and John Cusack. A fair warning for you: Penn appears, but Woody has a very small role and Cusack does not even show up until over halfway through the film. So calling these the stars is a bit misleading. Even John Travolta appears almost as much as Woody Harrelson.
The two main stars are Elias Koteas (Casey Jones from the ninja turtle movies) and Nick Nolte, regardless of what the packaging says. And both of them are wonderful. Nolte is the hard-nosed commanding officer and Koteas is the man in the field who refuses to let his men die for nothing.
The film is powerful, with the conflict between Koteas and Nolte really dividing the audience into those who want to see action and those who want to save lives. And where they infiltrate a Japanese camp, the compassion the Americans show the Japanese is a very interesting spin. Whether it is historically accurate or not, I can't say.
But the film is not perfect. It's biggest problem, easily, is the length. Three hours of trying to get up one hill? I've seen "Hamburger Hill" and this drags even more than that, if I may say so. Cut an hour out of it, or at least a half hour and you'd have an engaging film. But I found myself wanting to pace back and forth a few too many times, and that's certainly not the way to make a movie.
I have no plans of watching this one a second time.