Product: Casualties of War [UMD for PSP] (1989)
Rating: 5.0
Truth is more Shocking than Fiction
Casualties of War is a unique film. There are many films that depict wartime atrocities. This one stands above the rest because of it's character development. We get to know the guilty parties, and they are not purely evil, but are in many ways quite ordinary. They seem like regular US GI's at first, just trying to survive day by day.Sean Penn's character (Sgt Meserve) leads them into an abyss, and only one of them (Eriksson, played by Micheal J Fox) refuses to enter. The others commit murder and rape, while Eriksson cringes. The separate perpetrators display trepidation, anxiousness, remorse and the lack thereof. Other characters exhibit cynicism and callousness. Their victim shows her fear alone.This film is effective because it shows all but one of the soldiers as having different and human sides. Eriksson and Diaz (John Leguizamo) know that what is happening is wrong, but one fails to stop it, and the other participates. Meserve comes up with absurd lies to try to justify what they are doing, not only for Eriksson, but for the others, and it seems even for himself. Only one character in this film (Clark) is completely inhuman. His sadistic fervor and amoral smugness makes him appear as a monster, plain and simple.This film is effective because it shows seemingly normal men in a descent into utter barbarism. Thuy Thu Le sets the mood for this by portraying the terror of their victim so well. Sympathy for the victim will surely make anyone cringe. But, it is by showing that the perpetrators, except Clark, are like most anyone that this film has its' strongest affect. How would we each fare if faced by such a situation? Who among us would stand against it? Who would succumb to it? This film strikes deeper than any horror film, with obviously inhuman monsters. It shows real people who become monsters, and is therefore vastly more effective- even more so because it all really happened.