A really good, but not quite great film about the vietnam conflict

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2002)

We were soldiers once....and young. That is the title of the book from which this well made film was adapted. Mel Gibson and Sam Elliot are excellent, as is the whole cast, and the battle is intense, horrifying and appropriately unpleasant (war after all isn't fun). I can not however give it a 10. The handling, or maybe mishandling of the women at home makes me hesitant. There seems a falsness to their scenes for the most part. Not all of it, but most of the women and their interactions with one another all seem forced. It is no fault of the actresses, who seem to take the material they have been given just about as far as it can go. Like I said though, not all of the women's scenes feel strained (watch closely the second letter delivery which is nicely acted and remarkably touching).
The movie does not let one view the action at too great a distance. This is no John Wayne war movie, all heroics and patriotism without much reflection on the conflict being portrayed. This movie isn't about flagwaving, which is shocking considering Randall Wallace, the films writer and director, also wrote the worthless and pathetic Pearl Harbor. There is however alot to be said for good direction. And Wallace here demonstrates some more discretion with cheesy manipulative tactics than the director of Pearl Harbor demonstrated. It is there, mostly in some questionable shot composition, but still present. Note to all future film-makers making war pictures, placing key actors in scenes with conspicuously placed U.S. flaggs almost always seems contrived. What is really interesting about this vietnam war film is that it almost completely sidesteps politics. We see that politics are going to play a role in landing Lt. Col. Moore (the Gibson character)and his men in a really tight spot. Moore knows this is going to cost lives, maybe even his own but he is a soldier, he will do his best to achieve his objective and reduce the loss of life of his men. Also in leaving the politics out of it and also showing both sides of fight we realize, as we watch, that both sides really aren't that different, that ultimately the men on either side are fighting for the same reason. The viewer also notices that all of the combatants, except for Gibson and Elliot, are young, barely one over thirty. And I think for americans that is such a key difference from WWII and the Vietnam conflict. Young, young men went to fight in Vietnam. It is a fact that even the main character, Moore, finds hard to get over. "I look at the men and all I see are my boys." The film can't dwell on the disillusionment that grew as the conflict lengthened, however it shows how the seeds were planted. The movie's thesis is that a soldier doesn't fight for country, for ideas, for abstracts, but that the soldier fights for the man next to them, for thier platoon, their family. It is the same message as that in Black Hawk Down, and I think the same message that you might find the film Platoon. I don't know if that is completely true but movies like Black Hawk and We were soldiers certainly make one understand why that motivation is so integral to the soldier.