Read All The Other Negative Reviews and You've Got The Gist....

Rating: 2/10 (5 November 2003)

they are pretty much spot on. this is a junky film that is just trying to get you to wave a flag and love the military. war is bad, but it means we can make a film about it and make millions...thanks guys....jesus... i will add two points though. this was my description of the depiction of suffering and attempts to rip emotion out of the audience: it keeps trying to shove the horridness of it all, the pain and suffering, right into your face as much as it can, so it keeps pushing it over the top until it stops being a staggering piece of emotion and suffering, and instead becomes a sick joke. like having a puppy get run over, and instead of just showing the crying child and the puppies body in the gutter, you grab the puppy and pull its intestines out to show how much of it there is to miss. its just f***ed up and cancels out any feelings you might have.
and. prime example of doing away with reality in order to try and make you cry: the reason they send taxi's to deliver the death notes to the wives, is because "they didnt have enough time" to organise anything better. but then the next day, mrs moore brings a death note to her close friend. why does she have the note? because she asked the taxi driver to bring her all the notes while he was having to continue to drop them off. this implies that the taxi death note service was still running the enxt day. which is ridiculous! the government/military would have organised something by then. but that wouldnt be quite so heart rending as showing their closest friend deliver the news.
this film is trash, and should only be taking as such.
there are many comments about how "factual" and "realistic" this film is. and if you read the comments carefully, they are only ever talking about the vietnam war as a whole, of the state of warfare in vietnam. but this film is about more than that. and in every other area it is all completely made up or "borrowed" from other incidents in vietnam and soldiers who never fought in this particular battle. go and read the book instead.