Mostly good war movie despite being too long and having a tendency towards sentimentality

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2005)

When Lt Col Hal Moore is drafted back in to lead a new platoon of men he didn't know that he would lead them into the first major battle of the Americans' entry into the Vietnam war. This is the story of that battle where the unit was dropped into the middle of the action, mere miles from the main base camp of the enemy and was immediately attacked by a prepared enemy who had a better knowledge of the terrain.
Although I have seen many Vietnam movies, I would certainly claim no understanding or knowledge of individual battles or tactics and to be honest, the main interest I have in battles of the period would focus on the military action in my own country of the time because I think it is important to know your own culture and understanding who you are. However I am interesting and will certainly always appreciate a war film that tells it like it is and isn't just a gung-ho, flag waving glorification of death. Looking at the cast list for this film though, made me think that perhaps it would be the latter and thus I didn't bother with it in the cinema. Having now seen the film for myself I must admit that I was partly wrong because the film is not all glorification but the mix of trying to do too much perhaps weakens it and does make it tend towards this at times.
In some ways the film succeeds because it is interesting in the way it focuses on one particular battle and does convincingly capture the horror of death during war  it is impossible to watch this and not be moved by the sheer waste of life it shows. Indeed the director is at pains to make sure we see the impact back home, even to the detriment of the film as I understood the loss without seeing crying families. The director also seems to be making great efforts to cover all bases and present the whole picture in some regards but yet fails in others; so we have balanced views of the enemies and the dialogue is clear of ethnic insults and lingo but yet at the same time we never seem anything that would condemn the war  hence we have no friendly fire incidents or really any deaths that are less than noble. This is a weakness of the film  it can't help but slightly glorify or sugar coat the total product; hence the start and end lack the emotional impact of the battle scenes and although the film is about the loss of life and waste of youth, it still hits a "noble" and "worthy" note that some may feel undermines the message the rest of it seems to be putting out.
Even though this is my gut reaction, I know I'm being a little unfair because, when portraying real men who died younger than me, then why not give them the dignity they deserve, but it is a difficult mix to carry off and, while good, I'm not sure the film totally managed to do it. The cast have the hardest job and many of them don't do anything beyond the predictable. Gibson is all very heroic, noble and courageous and he does the job but the rest of his men are a lot less effective in pigeon-hole roles. Elliot is good but obvious as a gruff Sgt-Major, Kinnear is a heroic fly-boy, Klein is the young father and so on. The women have less material to work with and are left with the histrionics to deliver  Stowe is the lead in a collection of good but mostly unnecessary performances. While none of them really have strong characters to work with, the majority do enough to pass muster in this film and I was pleased that Gibson was a lot more human than Braveheart suggested he would be.
Overall this is a solid war movie that manages to mix the horror with the nobility of war  a difficult trick to pull off and unfortunately a mix that will niggle sections of the audience who came for flagwaving and got depressing reality and vice versa those that came for gritty horror and got too much sentimentality. The cast are better than the names involved would suggest, even if they don't have much to do and some do have "movie soldier" dialogue to deliver in unconvincing ways (eg "I'm glad to...die....for...my...country") but it is still worth seeing even if there are better Vietnam movies.