Product: Casualties of War [UMD for PSP] (1989)
Rating: 2.0
Overkill
First off, I sincerely respect Penn's acting skills; and, while I like Michael J. Fox personally and find him appealing in lighter roles such as "Back to the Future," he projected to me the aura of one of those soldiers destined not to survive the rigors of prolonged combat. With my respect for Penn undiminished, far more than in other films of the genre that I've seen, I could never stop seeing these "soldiers" as actors playing a part; the female victim was the only character who allowed me to totally suspend disbelief (all the worse for me).As another reviewer observed, casting the roles of participants of a real-world atrocity with actors of a different race seems to go beyond my idea of permissible Hollywood license and deep into propaganda territory. Portraying genuine minority heroes with white actors would provoke outraged protests from whichever community was denied their rightful reflected glory. If this film is to be taken seriously as history, as it strives to be, I don't accept that they needed big-name star power to attract an audience, or that they just couldn't find any actors of the appropriate race talented enough to play their real-world counterparts. "Whitewashing" the racial component in what purports to be a true story is, to the extent it was done, inexcuseable. The producers could have easily fictionalized anything they liked and populated it with a squad of the most popular and convenient societal scapegoat figures imaginable and made a movie representative of the issue(s) they wished to address. But, instead, they chose give their creation the added dramatic weight of a story that is supposed to have really happened as presented, forcing you to witness an atrocity that is not fiction. I believe that the price demanded for such additional dramatic weight is the utmost faithfulness to the facts, including those that the creators might wish were different.Rape and other atrocities have been commonplace in warfare for as long as there has been warfare, and no side can claim innocence. That's an age-old truism. It's not pretty subject matter, but neither is just about anything else in war. When your life has been reduced to little more than grim survival, and virtually all moral landmarks have been eradicated for expediency, except to follow orders, normal social conventions can't seem very real, anymore. Like most of the audience, I was not in that situation, so, like most of the audience, I can only be disgusted by what I see unfold in this film. I find violence against defenseless non-combatants to be particularly objectionable. No doubt, far worse things have been carried out in times of war, and I'm relieved that I don't have to carry the memory of them around with me as I've carried the memory of the atrocities portrayed in this film around with me for the 20 years since I saw it in the theater. It received favorable reviews, and I was anxious to see Penn in another film. But, in hindsight, I wish I'd never seen it. I would have been more comfortable watching a symbolic, representative piece of fiction than having to bear in mind that the experiences portrayed by the actress in this film actually happened to someone.I knew that war was an ugly, arbitrary, violent, tragic, and often sadistic place to be without seeing this film. I've read All Quiet on the Western Front, countless non-fictional accounts of WWII, viewed numerous historic war documentaries utilizing contemporary combat footage, and watched countless Hollywood products such asPaths of Glory,Apocalypse Now - The Complete Dossier (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition),Platoon (Special Edition),Full Metal Jacket, and myriad other films (of all genres). And, while I was fortunate enough not to have to be in this kind of environment, myself, many of the people who've passed through my life had all manner of personal experiences to tell me about WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. I learned all that a person really needs to know about war without this film. All I can say this added to the pile was a mild case of post-traumatic vicarious stress disorder, a condition that, for all I know, exists only in me from watching this movie. I can't think of who needs to see this film. If you're already emotionally numb enough not to be bothered by it, then the message will be lost on you; and if you're at all sensitive, this will just upset you. It doesn't work as an action movie, since the central crime runs through virtually the whole thing like a huge scratch on the print; it doesn't give you any satisfied sense of justice being done in the end, because the system is just as bad after the experience, and the punishments, when they weren't dismissed on technicalities, were ultimately dwarfed by the crime. I won't totally trash this film because it is photographed competently, and the acting is fully adequate. But I can't recommend one of the few films I wish I could erase from my memory.