Rubbish!

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2006)

I saw this movie years ago in a Parisian movie theater, and the international audience just laughed at this movie. The funniest scene was the one where Madeleine Stowe (whose lips seemed to have undergone plastic surgery) got the letter probably notifying her of her husband's death. I know that this scene was not meant too be funny, but most of us laughed because the pathos just didn't work. To me, the whole letter of death scheme reminded me of Oscar Wilde's comedies where letters of embarrassing content are handed over to all kinds of people. The second scene which I thought was revolting, was when Gibson's character shoots a Vietcong and laconically says something like 'It's getting a little sporty over here' to some general or other on the radio. The scenes about the Vietcong enemy weren't convincing at all, the conclusions that were to be drawn from them was something like: Yeah the Vietcong are humans as well, but they are not as handsome and smart as Mel Gibson so it's okay for him to shoot them and make snide remarks about their demise. If the Gibson character had really been a hero he wouldn't have gone to war at all. He would have said to his superior: Listen, this is the most stupid war ever, there is no point in going to Vietnam and shooting people just because they aren't democrats. Let's just call the whole thing off and let's stay with our wives and kids.