still flashing back

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2002)

A Loud Seven For one startling second, Mel Gibson as Hal Moore seemingly transforms into John Wayne during the celluloid version of the battle of Ia Drang in Randall Wallace's new film We Were Soldiers. The transformation is physical as well as metaphysical. Gibson doesn't merely bring back memories of Wayne, for that second he looks and sounds like the Wayne of World War Two flicks. No problem with that. The problem lies with looking and sounding like the Wayne fighting man of Viet Nam rather than the Wayne warrior of Iwo Jima. That Duke in Ia Drang imagery brings to mind Wayne's clumsy, wrong headed direction of his own Viet Nam film/fiasco, The Green Berets. Maybe Mel's helmet is the problem. Throughout the film Gibson/Moore barks indecipherable orders from underneath a General Patton, G.I Joe helmet that looks like a refugee from a Bill Mauldin cartoon. We Were Soldiers relentlessly seems like an uncomfortable synthesis of WW2 films and Viet Nam films. In the language of cinema, Soldiers more closely resembles Saving Private Ryan or Guadalcanal Diary than it resembles Platoon or Full Metal Jacket. Certainly the battle of Ia Drang portrayed in We Were Soldiers deserves commemoration. Ia Drang, fought in November of 1965 is often described as the first `conventional' battle of the Viet Nam war. Conventional apparently means, the way John Wayne or John Ford of George Patton would fight it, man to man with charges, sieges, fistfights and bayonets. The battle was so `conventional' and `productive' that General Westmoreland came to the brilliant realization that kill ratio would be a great method to keep score during the war, after all we killed nine times as many `of dem as dey killed ah us'. Using this scorekeeping method, we kept winning the war until 58,000 American citizens died and we left town and built a Wall. Nam remains a bewildering, enigma of startling sound and fury significance. In that regard, portraying war as hell rather than heck, chaos rather than order, We Were Soldiers succeeds. Soldiers is the most violent, bloodsoaked, burn blistered movie that I have ever seen with one image after another that I want to remove from my working memory. Even after a week, they still remain. When, if, you see the movie, you'll know what I mean. Anyone seeking an ultra-violent reminder of pre 66 American military arrogance mixed with the remains of World War Two gung ho heroism directed by the guy who gave us The Man in the Iron Mask should go see We Were Soldiers particularly those who value cinema as a source of both headache and heartache. For all others, find a metaphoric helmet and put it over your sensitivities before entering the theater or do whatever else you would do when confronting a movie that I would rate as a very loud 7.