War Movie Making 101

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2003)

I'm not at all surprised that this generally terrible movie has such high ratings. It succeeds in every respect as a formulaic, jingoistic war movie - pushing all the scripted buttons in order - in a time when a love affair when all things military is in full swing.
That said, it is an objectionably bad movie.
In some ways we have Spielberg to blame. After the technically proficient but rather poorly written "Saving Private Ryan", there was a surge in popularity for "real" war movies. Making a war movie became all about how gruesome one could make the battle scenes. The stories have all been on autopilot, the same ragtag bunch of misfits spouting heroic lines that have been pushed onto the silver screen since WWII.
"We Were Soldiers" is a bad movie because it contains so little imagination, and although the battle scenes are sufficiently traumatic, the movie drags at all other times. It simply feels manipulative. From the "Daddy, what's a war?" moments in Mel Gibson's home to the scene where Randall Wallace speaks for the disenfranchised black man, it's just embarassing.
Unfortunately for Wallace it all falls on him. Sure, Gibson is coasting, doing a bad American accent and his usual hard-swallowing, not-gonna-cry emoting. But the actors can't really be blamed: it is what they are forced to say, and the way they are told to say it, that ruins this movie.
It is also shameful the way Wallace wraps his movie in god-and-country symbolism. Lots of scenes in churches or of flags blowing triumphantly in the breeze. Numerous statements of purpose and valor. Men on their knees in churches asking the Almighty to smite their foe.
Perhaps the most technically inept of Wallace's numerous trip-ups is the repeated use of an annoying Scottish lament, which most viewers have come to know as the "Lay Me Doon" song. It consists of mournful Scottish music and a Scotsman repeating over and over, "Lay Meeee Dooooon ... In the cooold coold grooond ..." It is unintentionally hilarious, mostly because he uses it like ten times.
I'm certain that it is technically and factually accurate, as far as the events go (something they brag about in a separate movie). One thing I can commend Wallace for is showing the folly of going back for a wounded friend - every time someone screams "Frank, noooo!" and goes back to pick up his buddy, you know he's done for. But as far as entertainment goes, it could have been pulled out of a WWII time capsule. It's propaganda, and poorly-written propaganda at that. Good propaganda doesn't let you know when you are being manipulated. Here we feel the strings tugging at all times.
I guess if you really want to be grossed out by some war footage, this is as good a place as any to turn. When I first saw it I rented it and fast-forwarded through all the "war at home" moments, and it was almost bearable.