Best Vietnam movie

Rating: 9/10 (27 February 2002)

I was disposed to dislike this film because of the horrible trailers. I was pleasantly surprised however during the advance screening. This is a meaty film with plenty to admire, provoke and digest. Sure there are about half a dozen lines that might make potential script writers squirm but Randall Wallace has succeeded brilliantly in the goal he set for himself (he spoke after the screening). And that was the goal of telling the soldiers stories... devoid of any extraneous political complications. These men fought for each other. Wallace also doesn't make the mistake of dehumanizing the enemy. The Vietnamese are given a great deal of sympathetic screen time. As Wallace said, the only enemy is war itself and he made a conscious effort to have no "evil" characters. This is a story about the men who have to fight the politicians' wars... and how they do it. The epic scope of Braveheart is here transposed to the modern day and for me... by the end of the movie it really worked.
This is the best movie about Vietnam, that is actually about Vietnam.
Other great films on the subject are about the filmmaker's psyche more than the war itself (Apocalypse Now, Deerhunter, even Platoon). This film while sometimes graphic and sometimes controversial (Wallace's inclusion of Hal Moore's catholicism may offend many) is an excellent work of filmmaking. Don't let the trailers deter you. This is a