Into the heart of a movie battle like no other

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2005)

It is hard to stand out and be a unique war film. They've been making war films pretty much since the invention of film it seems. So you would think by now that it's all been done before, and for the most part it has. Yet We Were Soldiers manages to separate itself from the pack and give us a unique take on one particular battle in one particular war. Depicted here is the first major battle involving American troops in the Vietnam War. The fact that this battle takes place in what is known as the Valley of Death tells you all you need to know about what awaits the men who head into combat.
The central figure in the movie is Lt. Col Hal Moore, played by Mel Gibson. Moore, leading the 7th Cavalry, will train his men and lead them into whatever hell awaits them. The film begins back home as Moore assembles his new unit and begins to whip them into shape. Here we learn much about what makes Hal Moore tick and begin to see him for the true leader of men he is. These opening scenes are important as they show many of Moore's motivations and also the obstacles which are placed in his way. The time back home also allows us to see Moore the family man with his strong, stoic wife, played by Madeline Stowe, and their young children. We also meet other key characters. There is Moore's second-in-command, battle-tested Sgt. Maj. Plumley, played with wonderful gruffness and all the appropriate seriousness by Sam Elliott. There is helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall, played by Greg Kinnear, and young Lt. Jack Geoghegan, played, surprisingly well for someone who came to prominence in a silly farce like American Pie, by Chris Klein. But the key figure throughout is undeniably Moore and Gibson's strong, confident portrayal is a key to the movie's success.
While important in establishing the key characters and the emotional ties that bind them to each other and those whom they are leaving behind, the opening scenes back home have a feeling of just biding time about them. The film really takes off when the 7th Cavalry is dropped into the Valley of Death and confronts the overwhelming enemy force which awaits them. The rest of the film deals with this one epic, unrelenting battle. It sounds clichéd but the battle scenes are so well choreographed and photographed that you do truly feel as if you are there. The intensity of the conflict jumps off the screen. The focus is on the valor and heroism of the American soldiers but unlike so many war films which present a nameless, faceless enemy we also get to see things from the Vietnamese perspective. We see the enemy leaders detailing their strategy and also are presented with reminders that the Americans are not the only ones with loving, concerned families back home. We see the toll on both sides, not just for the soldiers but perhaps most poignantly in scenes inter-cut from home where soldiers' wives wait to learn the fates of the men they love.
We Were Soldiers is a brutally honest, unflinching look at the hell that is war. It is a story which begged to be told. Seeing as it is adapted from a book by two of the central figures in the conflict, Hal Moore and reporter Joe Galloway who found himself thrust into the middle of the conflict (and who is played wonderfully by Barry Pepper in the film) you can rest assured that unlike so many other war films this one would focus on "getting it right." The film tells it as it truly was. It is at times invigorating and inspiring and at other times truly heartbreaking. All in all it is a fitting tribute to, as the film states at the beginning, the men on both sides who died in that place.