The sour is sweet and the sweet grates the teeth!

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2002)

Okay - I'm midway through this movie - it's on pause on my DVD player right now, and I had to chime in.
This movie is saccharine! The story sets up two fronts - one with Mel Gibson fighting in Vietnam and another with his wife, Madeline Stowe, commanding the wives at a domestic base. The action is fantastic, and the visuals are amazing - but there are just so many super-patriotic moments thrown in that needlessly remind the viewer how great America is. You've seen this movie before, trust me.
What really made me pause the thing is the token black family! Why did they even bother? The movie plays it like a trite conflict, and heralds that all races and creeds are good (as long as they fight for the USA). In fact, there is a white woman who thinks that a laundry service sign that reads, "WHITES ONLY" means that you can't wash your greens and blues and reds there. The black wife is so ridiculously stereotyped! All the other pretty white wives respect her "take-charge" attitude - not to mention that when they deliver the news that her husband was killed, she more or less snaps her fingers and repeats, "Oh no you didn't, oh no you didn't!" over and over again. That put me over the top.
I have never read the book, "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young," so maybe racism is indeed a factor of the story. But in this movie, it develops out of nowhere. I understand that of course, it was an issue at the time, and perhaps doesn't need an development. But still - the payoff looks meek regardless. I guess I'll find out. Back to the movie.
On a final note - this thing looks like it was re-edited and re-thought significantly after all the September 11th stuff. I wonder if it would have been a little more cynical if the attacks never occured.