Merciless and simply unforgiving.

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2002)

A fine and acceptable account of the first major battle in Vietnam between the N.V.A. and the U.S. forces in the Ia Drang Valley, as known as "The Valley of Death". The movie is well-cast with Mel Gibson, Chris Klein, and Sam Elliott who portray the high-ranking members of the seventh Air Calvary division who lead the unit of four hundred men into the area, nearly walk into a major bushwhack (or ambush), and discover their counterpart have more troops (2,000 to be exact). Plus, it shows some scenes where the wives of the soldiers (Madeline Stowe and Keri Russell among them) who were or weren't prepared to deal with the fact that their loved ones might not come back alive. That's how war is - merciless and simply unforgiving.
Writer/Director Randall Wallace, who in directing his second film here, has the tough task of handling the scenes, and he shows no problems in doing so. The movie has a small mix of Samuel Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, and Oliver Stone. And there's a couple of nice touches at the movie. The first one being Gibson character writing to a widow of a dead NV soldier and the second one decading this movie to those who died in the fight.