now we're glorifying Vietnam?

Rating: 2/10 (31 July 2005)

This movie just plain sickens me. It shows the Americans at their absolute worst. It's hard to even know where to begin.
For starters, it has every cliché in the book. The one soldier who has a pregnant wife at home, the black soldier who can't do his laundry in a white only laundromat but who will still fight for his country, the one soldier who spent a year in Africa with his wife building orphanages because "he wanted to help orphans, not create them" (so naturally he joined the army). Then to the battlefield where one soldier actually says before he dies "I'm glad I died for my country". Gibson bravely says "no man will be left behind" and sure enough, all are saved by the glorious teamwork and bravery of the American soldiers (after all, the U.S won in Vietnam right?.... read VERY sarcastically). The constant prayer gets annoying too, we all know Mel is a born again, and that''s fine, but it really doesn't have to be in every scene of every film he makes. In fact, at one point he's praying (for about the 8th time) and he asks god not to listen to the enemies "heathen prayer".
This isn't an anti-American rant, if Britain made a film glorifying the occupation of India or Germany the invasion of Poland I'd feel the same way. This film is little more then a recruiting poster for Iraq II. The only thing that gives it a 2 is the fact that they show the North Vietnamese commander in a human light, he does care for his men and wants to win. He also says at the end that now they'll have to fight the Americans, but that the outcome will be the same as it was for the French.
I don't want to knock the men who did fight in Vietnam (whether American, French, Vietnamese, South Korean, Australian etc.) but this is unnecessary. Go rent Platoon. Randal Wallace says in the commentary that this film is "getting Vietnam right" while making his sole source a Lt. Col who is portrayed in a very flattering light in the film. Platoon was researched asking privates and corporals in the U.S army what it was like. Better film and more accurate, rent it instead.