Inadequate film for its time

Rating: 6/10 (27 March 2002)

Had We Were Soldiers been made 10 years or even 5 years ago it would have really resonated with me. But after Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Enemy at the Gates, and Black Hawk Down this movie really does not reveal much about war or human reactions to it. Instead it is an amalgam of the bloodiest scenes current technology will allow and gratuituous family time scenes which add little to the drama.
I will admit that in spite of this that watching the film did affect me, but I believe that it had more to do with sitting directly behind a Vietnam Vet who throughout the film would turn to his wife and remark about how he remembered this or that and next to a West Point cadet who was told early on that the average life span of a 2nd Lt. in Vietnam was 15 minutes and was now watching that statistic come to life. But the film did not affect me, the serviceman's reactions to the film did.
If you like Gibson and want to see him in a war film see Gallipoli, he was younger, less arrogant and seemed to care more about the soldier's experience. I like Gibson, but his actions at the West Point showing of the film definitely hinted that he was more interested in the box office success of the war film and less about the soldiers' story. I hope I am wrong about him and his attitudes, but I fear that I'm not.
Not a bad war movie, but there are so many better.