Daddy, what is a good movie? Not this one, honey.

Rating: 1/10 (4 March 2002)

This movie truly is a huge disappointment.
The first 45 minutes or so are awful and riddled with dreadful dialogue. When the movie finally shifts to the battle, it really doesn't click either. The characters are all cardboard and clichéd. Pardon the pun, but you can start picking off the guys who are going to die in battle minutes after we are introduced to them.
Who knew that the John Wayne-esquire protagonist would make a comeback? There he is, Mel Gibson, standing tall, ignoring bullets whizzing by, nonchalantly knocking off enemy soldiers as if they were mere nuisances.
And there's even a ridiculous deus ex machina moment in this film that is laughable.
The women in this movie are mere decorations and even in those scenes, you can predict what's going to happen. And Madeleine Stowe had to pick this film not to shed her clothes, which would have been a small bonus.
I realize the need to make a film that honors those who fought and died valiantly in this battle. But this film is not the one to do that. I don't mind that the film never questions why we were in Vietnam or whether we should have been there.
This film - like "Black Hawk Down" - wants to simply tell the story of the battle and those who participated in it. But surely not every soldier who fought was a cliché from almost every war picture that was ever made. The only character missing was that young, late teen-age soldier, nicknamed with the state he hails from, sitting in the trenches looking at the picture of his childhood sweetheart Betsy, telling his buddies that when he returns stateside, he's going to go back to the farm and raise a family with her and then...wham! - a sniper's bullet slams into his skull. And his buddies get really angry now because this time the bad guys killed Wisconsin.
And in case you were wondering whether Randall Wallace has gotten over his penchant for slow-motion, fear not. This movie's got plenty of those shots, too, in case the audience was just too dumb to realize the significance of the moment.
If you want to see a good movie about the early days of Vietnam, rent "Go Tell the Spartans," starring Burt Lancaster.