We Were Soldiers Once...and Maudlin

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2002)

This movie opens with the words: "This is the true story..." Were it not for these words, I would be ready to dismiss the sentimentality, brutality, and ultimately the victory of Lt Gen Hal Moore as a Hollywood contrivance. The fact is that Moore walks this earth, these events did happen, and men died horribly on a far-off battlefield at the behest of their misguided countrymen.
The movie is based on journalist Joe Galloway's and Moore's account of their involvement in a 1965 battle in North Vietnam. It was refreshing and enlightening to see how a battle actually plays out, with attention to terrain, timing, numbers, artillery and air support, communication, transport, and carnage. The usual war film structure--character and plot development, firefight, more development, firefight, epiphany, firefight, resolution--is abandoned in favour of initial development, then a continuous firefight serving as the backdrop for several well-rounded characters: Moore (Mel Gibson), Galloway (Barry Pepper), Lt Jack Geoghegan (Chris Klein), and Maj Bruce 'Snakeshit' Crandall (Greg Kinnear).
We Were Soldiers is also tribute to the heroism, intellect, and compassion of Moore. And if at times the movie's Moore is saccharin-sweet, as when he prays with his children, comforts a new father in his ranks, or pays his respects to the widow of an enemy soldier, I can forgive the movie because I suspect much of this rings true with the living, breathing, death-dealing Moore of real life. While Gibson's portrayal lacks the charisma of Crowe's Maximus (Gladiator), Neeson's Schindler (Schindler's List), or even Gibson's Wallace (Braveheart), I was nevertheless moved.
Seven out of ten.