Product: Casualties of War [UMD for PSP] (1989)
Rating: 4.0
The Excuseable Americans
In this powerful movie, American soldiers who invade a foreign land are floundering in the chaos of combat with both enemies and civilians who don't want them there. The Americans are seen as barbarians who are ignorant of everything, including the customs of the country. "Casualties of War" was made in 1989, long before America's current misadventures in Iraq. But just substitute desert wasteland for humid jungle to sense the deja vu this film evokes today. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed.Cast against type, Michael J. Fox is just fine, surprisingly, as a GI who applies morality to human behavior whatever the circumstance, in this case another unnecessary American war, in Vietnam. Sean Penn is even finer, unsurprisingly, as the sergeant who orders his squad to kidnap, rape and murder a civilian girl because war excuses everything, even blood lust. Fox does not participate and for that is punished by his squad and his conscience. When he tells the high command, he is dismayed to discover that "nobody cares." Is there a parallel here?"Casualties of War" stings like truth. Playwright David Rabe based his script on New Yorker reportage, later enlarged into a book. Brian DePalma directs with his usual fluidity and appreciation of horror, notably the victimization of the girl, a touching Thuy Thu Le standing-in for an entire people. Fox's work is poignant in light of the actor's later ill health, and there's subtle support from John C. Reilly and John Leguizamo. You have to go back to Stanley Kubrick's two combat classics, "Paths of Glory" and "Full Metal Jacket," for an indictment of war as unsettling as this.