Product: Casualties of War [UMD for PSP] (1989)
Rating: 4.0
Good film but never a classic!
Since I watched to Penn in this film I predicted for him a heavy weight actor. To win in such exigent role and show the dark side of the human being with the merciless treatment with a Vietnamese girl. He was so convincing that he gets to be hated by the viewer, far beyond a simple entertainment exercise.The whole film however suffers of an effective dramatic sequence, the long and sensationalism scenes lack of expressiveness, the election of Fox was not appropriate. You may think in other options such James Spader, John Cussack, Ray Liotta and Robert Downey Jr for instance whose face exhibits noblesse but also fiercenss when the moment demands it . Fox is excessively kindness but consider you are in the middle of the hell, and not in a beautiful suite of Manhattan.Curiously De Palma who has astonished us so many times with his magical camera handle is in this case too restrictve, abuses of the flash backs and incredibly the film do not own that phlegmatic energy that characterizes this well gifted director. You can feel De Palma does not know to walk in this territory: a war film is not a suspense film. It has its own codes. Moreover, if you look behind and make an analytic retrospective you may find seven notable directors that won in both genres: Billy Wilder (Stalag 17 and Double indeminity) ; Sam Fuller (Crimsom kimono and Shock Corridor), Stanley Kubrick (Paths of glory and The shinning), Robert Aldrich (Dirty dozen and What ever happened with Baby Jane), Steven Spielberg (Saving private Ryan and Schindler's list) , Wolfang Petersen (Das Boot and Shattered) and Sam Peckinpah (Cross of iron and Straw dogs)