A Movie About Soldiers

Rating: 10/10 (21 September 2012)

We Were Soldiers is a war film that dramatizes the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14, 1965. It is based on the book,"We Were Soldiers Once And Young" by Retired Lieutenant General Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, both of whom were at the battle.The movie stars Mel Gibson together with Madeleine Stowe,Taylor Momsen,Luke Benward,Devon Werkheiser,Sam Elliott,Greg Kinnear,Chris Klein,Keri Russell and Barry Pepper.It was written and directed by Randall Wallace.
Lt. Col. Hal Moore is the commander of the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry and the same regiment fatefully led by George Armstrong Custer. As part of the Pleiku Campaign of late 1965, Moore is assigned to an action at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Drang Valley, an area that would come to be known as the "The Valley of Death." He soon finds himself and his men contained to an area about the size of a football field, surrounded by more than 2,000 enemy troops and engaged in the first major battle of the war. Heroism becomes the order of the day as men like Moore, chopper pilot Bruce Crandall, and Lt. Henry Herrick refuse to yield, in spite of heavy losses of life.
We Were Soldiers is a fitting tribute to all the men and women who have fought and died for their country and for each other.The war genre does that by taking several steps backward with this old-fashioned moralistic saga and by doing a much better job of establishing the characters before they plunge into battle.Also,despite of the violence it portrays on screen,it has a good story and an important message that it wants to impart to the viewer.