Product: Casualties of War [UMD for PSP] (1989)
Rating: 1.0
A Classic Hollywood Supports the Troops film.
CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989) Directed by Brian De Palma. Script by David Rabe. Score by Ennio Morricone.Starring Michael J. Fox, John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo, Ving Rhames, Sherman Howard, Amy Irving, Stephen Baldwin and Sean Penn.This, based on a true story--or rather something written during the Vietnam War for The New Yorker by someone who wanted to undercut morale and hinder the War effort---film tells the story of a group of five soldiers who, when sent on a recon patrol, four of whom kidnap, rape and then murder a Vietnamese girl. Upon returning from the patrol, the fifth soldier names names and testifies against them before a military committee resulting in their conviction.By 1989, The Left was horrified that, due to the Rambo films among others, their Vietnam War smear on American soldiers--that they were all drooling drug addicted incompetent suppressed homosexual Nazi baby killers--was being discredited and discarded to the trash heap of false history. So, digging up Comrade Rabe who spent the Vietnam War years creating the smears that The Party used to aid their Little Red Brothers in North Vietnam to write the script, this film was produced portraying American Soldiers as being drooling drug addicted incompetent suppressed homosexual Nazi baby killers.Utterly stuck in a fraudulent past, the film might just as well be made in 1969 rather than 89 for all that it acknowledges that 20 years have past and the Communist conquest of Indochina was a humanitarian disaster of Biblical proportions. But no. Communism may fall in Moscow but Party Discipline goes on forever. The film is so retro that, at one point, a character actually paraphrases John Kerry by describing the Americans as Genghis Khans.Really.As might be expected, the adherence to the Party Line hurts the film dramatically in many ways. DePalma's two main battle scenes are off in a way that is hard to put one's finger on---presumably because his sympathies are with the Reds rather than the Americans who are so incompetent here that they kill as many of themselves than they do of the enemy. In any case, there is no suspense or verve in these scenes. Rabe's dialogue...especially in the first 30 minutes is very bad and very fake in that Clifford Odets sing song repetition rhythm sort of way with characters basically saying the same thing over and over again while stopping short of clapping their hands while doing so. Why DOES the Left feel the need to repeat everything at least three times in their melodramas?? A core belief that the rabble are so ignorant that they can only be indoctrinated by constant repetition?? My my such affection for those they claim that they are trying to liberate.The film does not really come alive until the hour long kidnaping rape and murder sequence which DePalma/Rabe linger over with graphic detail and disturbing almost and probable gleeful relish. This sequence is far more brutal and detailed than anything in say THE KILLING FIELDS or indeed any filmed....of the very few... Communist atrocity in American film from easily 1970 to the present day, indicating, since the Reds did the similar and worse as their ideology dictated to literally millions of Orientals like the girl here......and still do to this day, that DePalma/Rabe really do not give a damn about this girl's tragedy other than as someone to be exploited, used and discarded for the Party and the Cause. If these criminals had not raped and murdered her, DePalma and Rape probably would have done so themselves......which in a way they do.......While Fox and the actress who plays the girl are quite good--though at one point she is dubbed by Amy Irving, one cannot say as much for the rest of the cast. While Penn's reputation is an utter mystery to me--here his performance is a bizarre cross between Huntz Hall and Rondo Hatton--, one should attempt to be fair and state that no one has any real characters to play. Everyone is an old Moscow generated propaganda construct of how the Left likes to portray the American Military. In general, the American soldier is either a hysterical incompetent or a faceless bureaucrat. If he is Black, he is either a victim of racism or high on pot(and hence absolved of any responsibility of their involvement in the War). Fox plays the decent but impotent American(presumably the noncommunist Democrat) who is incapable of stopping his fellow Americans from "raping Vietnam." And the four criminal soldiers are respectively...a sergeant(played by Penn) who is an effective soldier but also insane and with suppressed homosexual tendencies(He is driven over the edge when his beloved Black friend is killed by the Vietcong) aka the Gay smear, a corporal who is racist and talks of exterminating all the Vietnamese aka the Nazi smear, the third soldier(played by Reilly) is close to being retarded--unlike members of the Left who are all "intellectuals" and finally the fourth played by Lequizamo who is just easily led--unlike the Left who were all "rebels." It is all so narcissistic, masturbatory and very familiar. DePalma liked this film so much that he recently remade it as REDACTED only changing the setting to Iraq.NOTE. Modern viewers of the film may be upset by DePalma having the truth about the crime being revealed and action taken only when Fox tells it to a Chaplain. That would have to changed today with the Priest being portrayed as a drunken pedophile who tries to rape Fox.A Hollywood supports the troops film.See it or not