Well done battle film

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2010)

I am not a Gibson fan. He often appears in contrived plots and trite themes, but he is one of the best actors of this age. Here, he gives a superior performance, which, of course, also means the other actors also gave superior performances, and the direction and editing was superb.
The story is about a battle at the beginning of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. The story is nonjudgmental, and goes out of its way to be neutral. It is obviously anti-war, and depicts higher ups in a poor light, but the poor light is justified by being accurate, and well depicted in a way we can understand.
It is a different style of war film. It has elements of the old war film, in which we see some camaraderie among soldiers in an isolated situation, along with the families at home who wait for news, and it has elements of the new war film, in which we see some of the politics involved in decisions higher up.
It is high in action, and not many dull moments. We begin with the introduction of characters, the training, and the family lives of the soldiers, then we get into high gear with combat, and the combat is brutal. One officer leads his men into an ill advised chase of an enemy scout to capture him (his men must've been wondering why they couldn't have been told to shoot the enemy in the leg to capture him) and get cut off.
We really see most characters come and go, but the film does follow 5 Americans in battle pretty well, one of them who does leave this world. One of the five is a reporter who makes the film a little weaker. By any definition, he is a moron, going into the heat of battle with no adequate explanation, except for his inner feeling of superiority. Without this character, the film could've ranked a 10 instead of a 9. But if he was there, he was there.
Well done war film that takes no sides.