Could be so much better

Rating: 3/10 (2 March 2002)

This is a classic case of an over-the-top American movie. The United States is capable of making the very best movies the world has ever known, and very often does. But this movie seems to be another example of recent Mel Gibson patriotic nonsense. For reasons that escape me, Mel Gibson seems to have turned into a flag waver for American history (witness 'The Patriot').
This from an actor that used to challenge the status quo, from 'The Year Of Living Dangerously' to 'The Light Horseman' to 'Gallipoli.' Now, I am not > suggesting for a moment that this was not a significant battle, or an important part > of US history. But it just seems so one sided, gung-ho and overtly patriotic (is this a new theme since 911?).
The fact is that so many past US films regarding the Vietnam conflict seem so much more balanced (witness 'Platoon' or 'The Boys Of Company C' to name a few). The fact is that no country other than the US can really make a movie about the true experience that Americans went through during that awful period in US history.
One of the few positive points about this film though, is that at least an attempt was made to show 'the other side.' But I am still waiting for a Vietnam war movie to come out to show what the Vietnamese were really thinking, and what drove them to the sacrifices so many made.
I trust only one country to truly expose the feelings and drive of the Vietnamese side, and how the American soldiers truly felt being there, and that is the USA. Americans can do it, and that would probably be the most fair, and truly patriotic film of all, on the serious US involvement in the Vietnam war from 1965 to 1975.