A violent but well executed 'nam pic.

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2017)

"I will be the first to set foot on the filed, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no man behind." So declares Lt. Hal Moore played by Mel Gibson the day before he and his outfit set off across the Pacific for the front lines of Vietnam. Easily the highlight line of the movie, it would be easy enough to see this as the kind of cheesy bravado that romanticizes war heroes, but We Were Soldiers gets away with it by being everything but romantic. There are moments where the images of blood alone may be enough to summon misty eyes.
The movie doesn't bring anything new to the genre, but it is a visually genuine and visceral depiction of battle and survival. The American invasion of Communist Vietnam is something that to this day, virtually nobody is proud of so. All the better it is that the film has no political bias or stance on the conflict. It even does something to the contrary. The Vietcong "charlie" are not bad guys, they are merely soldiers fighting for their homeland.
The firefighting is quite exhausting but it is the individual moments in-between the bullets that lift We Were Soldiers out of the chaos. Director Randall Wallace adds a curious scoring touch laying "Sgt. Mackenzie." (a Scottish WWI ballad), over the first moments of the final assault.
The irony is that this is a song about the will to die for country; not a compatible motif with 'nam,Regardless of its political correctness, the words end up being less important than the somber and haunting tone of the melody. Our characters are not fighting for country, they are fighting for each other, and to get home to their loved ones.
Every now and then, Wallace cuts from the front lines back to America to focus on Moore's Wife and the wives of his comrades. Day to day they live in fear of receiving a certain letter from the government regarding their husbands. The impact of these scenes on the picture is rather minimal, but it serves to remind us of what is really at stake, while showcasing one of Madaline Stowe's better performances. She barely has to say a word, you can read the vulnerability in her eyes.
True to his word, Hal Moore is the first to step off the field, and there is a good shot of his boot coming of the grass and into the chopper that will take him back to the home of the brave. The final sequences are heavy on unspoken melodrama, over emphasizing the loss of life. The film doesn't rely on our knowledge of the history to add to the tragedy. It is a story about brothers and comrades who fought together and died together.