Say what you will about this, but I think it's brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2002)

Except for the obligatory scenes back on the military base where the wives are waiting to here about the fates of their husbands, this film is as near-perfect a piece of film as there has been this millenium. Forget your lame@ss "Episode II", a.k.a. Idiotic-Unrealistic-Special Effects-Overload or the good but hardly great "Spiderman" - this is a great, gritty, uncensored film that shows the grim realities of war as many a film has before, but it's still a classic.
Once the battle scenes begin, the film begins to shine. I certainly didn't expect it to be a great film, and the first forty-five minutes or so certainly didn't convince me otherwise. But then, when the fighting began -
The battle scenes were gritty, realistic, and gore-soaked. Only when they slowed down while sad music played in the background (and thus giving the filmmakers a chance to employ Peckinpah-esque slow-motion supergore) in the midst of a fierce firefight did it lag. While maybe the North Vietnamese were indeed portrayed as "faceless colored people", this took nothing away from the film.
Acting was good - Gibson is better than I thought he would be, but Sam Elliot was my favorite character.
I don't have too much more to say - just one man's opinion.
Nine stars.