Good compromise between documentary and action-movie...

Rating: 8/10 (26 August 2004)

** HERE BE SPOILERS **
Lt.Col Hal Moore get assigned to a unit, which is going to be deployed in the War in Vietnam. The plan is to fly in with helicopter, and eventually pull out by helicopter. However their landing zone is very close to an Vietnamese base camp and the battle is soon raging.
Fortunately, I have no personal experience of being in battle, so I can only speculate. The movie is based on an actual battle and I gather that it is pretty accurate. Still, the story is told as a movie and has to be folded into this format. I guess this leads to some details and subplots (thankfully) has been omitted. Many other movies may try this way and one hand can get more dominant than the other, i.e. a dull documentary or a pure war-fiction with no reality anchor. To be sure, there are a lot of effects in WWS as well, but they never go overboard with them. The story and the characters are always in focus.
By doing it this way, we get to both see an entertaining movie (for us who likes war action that is) but at the same time glimpse the horrors of battle. There were really disturbing images, for example some badly burned soldiers whose skin just fell of, that made my stomach turn. Thankfully they were rather few and apart with more "normal" blood spill and splatter in between. Also we get an glimpse of the horrors the soldiers-wives has to live through, uncertainty and grief, as the notifications of their dead husbands are delivered to the wives by a cab company. It is also good to note, even if we mostly see the American perspective, that the Viatnamese command and soldiers is portrayed as soldiers as well. They just happen to "on the other side of the fence."
To conclude things, an entertaining docu-action with glimpses of a scary reality.
8/10