Gibson's war trilogy comes to an end - hopefully

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2002)

Mel Gibson has now given us a trilogy of leadership in war' movies. Putting aside `Gallipoli' (where he was a mere foot soldier), he has led the Scottish against the English in `Braveheart', turned the tide for the Americans against the British in `The Patriot', and now he commands Custer's old unit in Vietnam. This is an account of one of the very few full-scale battles between American troops and North Vietnamese regulars which occurred in November 1965 in the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands (recreated in central California). Some 400 US soldiers took on around 2,000 Vietnamese in a fire fight lasting three days and nights.
I've never been over-impressed by Gibson as an actor. He's fine in roles such as the wacky cop in the `Lethal Weapon' series, but I find him a performer of limited range. Nevertheless, here he has beefed up his body, adopted a gruff Southern accent and put on a smart uniform to enable him to give a more than adequate performance as the real life Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. For Gibson, this is clearly a very personal endeavour. His company Icon co-funded and distributed the film and the director and screenwriter is his old friend Randall Wallace who wrote `Braveheart' (and `Pearl Harbor'). Gibson  himself a Catholic with a large family  obviously identifies with Moore who is represented as fatherly to both his children and his men. Ironically Gibson's own father moved the family from the USA to Australia partly so that his sons would avoid the draft.
Veteran Sam Elliott is good as the stereotypically tough, loyal and laconic second-in-command (`Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't'), but Madeleine Stowe is sadly under-utilised as Moore's stoical wife. By contrast with `The Deerhunter', `Platoon' or `Born On The Fourth Of July', this is very much an officer's view of the Vietnam war with working class characters given very little to say.
War movies will never be the same since `Saving Private Ryan'. `We Were Soldiers'  like `Black Hawk Down' - presents a brutally visceral version of war in which we are left in no doubt of the terrible sound and awesome destruction of modern ordnance. Indeed there are so many similarities between these two films issued within weeks of one another. Both are based on books and show the essential role of the helicopter in modern warfare to both deliver and sustain ground troops and the all-decisive nature of air power; both involve US troops being massively outnumbered by local forces, inflicting far more deaths than they suffered, and having to fight by night as well as day; and, above all, both portray ill-conceived and ultimately failed American operations in an heroic light.
What distinguishes `We Were Soldiers' from so many other Vietnam movies is the patriotic and religious tone which is made easier by the timing of the incident in question. This was a period before the cynicism and chaos of the war had taken hold, when the Americans still thought they were right to be in this Asian quagmire. For the British viewer, this tone will not sit so easily, although one cannot fail to be stirred by the action and the music. However, I saw the movie with an American friend, who once wrote a book based on the recollections of 19 Vietnam veterans, and he confirmed my clear impression that American audiences -especially post-9/11 - will love it.