Filming Location the Only Flaw

Rating: 9/10 (3 March 2002)

While the scope and effect of Randall Wallace latest collaboration with Mel Gibson is very commendable, the film shoot location was not geographically correct, and didn't do the film justice. There is no location in the lower 48 United States that can accurately depict any location in the Central Highlands of (then) South Vietnam, or any location in Indo-China for that matter. The location used bore very little resemblance foliage wise to the Southeast Asian tropics at the actual location of the battle. it looked to much like the Southeastern United States. If a location in the Philippines could have been used or even on location in the Peoples Republic of Vietnam, this obvious flaw would have been for not, and this film would be at the masterpiece level as "Saving Private Ryan."