Battle scenes fail to save the day

Rating: 3/10 (19 March 2003)

It's ironic that We Were Soldiers only begins to show signs of life when death engulfs the screen. The opening hour is interminably dull. And patronising. In case we didn't listen up during drill instruction, stoical Leader Of Men(TM) Mel Gibson repeats his "I'll be the first on the battlefield and I'll be the last off it / All we have in war is one another" speech, only this time in a smarter uniform. In fact, most of the dialogue thuds like so many UXBs.
Thankfully, the cliches don't extend to the de rigeur rogues' gallery of platoon misfits - only the ever-grizzled Sam Elliott and wide-eyed father-to-be Chris Klein warrant more than cursory screen time. This is just as well, because once they touch down in the warzone, they're simply cannon fodder.
Wallace deserves some credit for staging the carnage well and giving the Viet Cong a point of view (though their commander's bunker-room debrief with his weary troops was less inspiring than an unenthusiastic sports coach giving a half-time team-talk).
Like Pearl Harbor, this is worth watching for the second hour alone. At least Wallace's screenplays are unique in that most scripts have a weak middle - his problems lie elsewhere.