Casualties of War

Plot synopsis:
The story is presented as a flashback of Max Eriksson, a Vietnam veteran.
Lt. Reilly leads his platoon of American soldiers on a nighttime patrol. They are attacked by the Viet Cong after a panicked soldier exposes their position. While on flank security, the ground cracks under Eriksson and he ends up partially stuck in a Viet Cong tunnel. Eriksson's squad leader, Sergeant Tony Meserve, pulls Eriksson out of the hole and eventually, the platoon retreats out of the jungle.
The platoon takes a break outside a river village in the Central Highlands. While relaxing and joking around, one of Meserve's friends, Specialist 4 "Brownie" Brown, is killed when the Viet Cong ambushes them. Brownie's death has a major impact on Meserve. Shortly afterward, the platoon is sent back to their barracks at Wolfe Base. Private First Class Antonio Dìaz arrives as the replacement radio operator.
Frustrated because his squad has been denied leave for an extended period, Meserve orders the squad to kidnap a Vietnamese girl to be their sex slave. Eriksson strenuously objects but Meserve, Cpl. Thomas E. Clark, and Private First Class Herbert Hatcher ignore Erikkson's objections. Before the five-man squad disembarked, Eriksson talks about his concerns to his closest friend, Rowan. At nightfall, the squad enters a village and kidnaps a Vietnamese girl, Than Thi Oahn.
As the squad treks through the mountains, Dìaz begins to reconsider raping Than and begs Erikkson to back him up. The squad and Than eventually take refuge in an abandoned hooch, where Erikkson is confronted and threatened by Meserve, Clark, and Hatcher. As the taunting continued, Dìaz decides to go along with the rape in order to avoid ridicule. Erikkson, who is now outnumbered, is ordered to the guard the hooch as the rest of the men take their turn raping Than.
At daybreak, Erikkson is ordered to guard Than while the rest of the squad takes up a position near a railroad bridge overlooking a Viet Cong river supply depot.
Through his acts of kindness, Erikkson manages to earn Than's trust and prepares to go AWOL and return Than to her family. However, Meserve sends Clark to get Erikkson and Than to go to the bridge before Erikkson can carry out his plan.
Meserve has Dìaz order air support for an assault on the depot and then orders Than to be stabbed to death by Dìaz. Before Dìaz can kill her, Eriksson fires his rifle into the air, exposing them to the nearby Viet Cong. In the midst of the firefight, Than tries to escape. Eriksson tries to save her but is stopped by Meserve, who knocks Eriksson down with the butt of his gun. Eriksson watches helplessly as the entire squad shoots Than numerous times until she falls off of the bridge.
After the battle, Eriksson wakes up in a field hospital on Wolfe Base. Erikkson eventually bumps into Rowan and tells him everything that happened. Rowan suggests that Erikkson sees Lt. Reilly and Company commander Captain Hill. Both Reilly and Hill prefer to bury the matter and Erikkson is told that he will be reassigned to a Tunnel Rat unit. In addition, the other four men were to be split up and reassigned to other units.
Later that evening an attempt on Eriksson's life is made by Clark, who tries to frag Eriksson while he is using the latrine. Eriksson takes action by confronting Meserve and his men, and using a shovel, strikes Clark across the face, scaring the rest of the men.
Eriksson then meets a chaplain at a bar and tells him the story of what happened during the patrol. There is an investigation and the four men who participated in the rape and murder are court martialed: Meserve receives ten years hard labor and a dishonorable discharge, Clark is sentenced to life in prison, Hatcher receives fifteen years hard labor, and Dìaz receives eight years hard labor.
At the end of the film, Eriksson wakens from a nightmare to find himself on a J-Church transit line in San Francisco, just a few seats from a Vietnamese-American student who resembles Than (same actress). She disembarks at Dolores Park and forgets her scarf and Eriksson runs after her to return it. As she thanks him and turns away, he calls after her in Vietnamese. She surmises that she reminds him of someone, and adds that he's had a bad dream. They go their separate ways and Eriksson is somewhat comforted.

Tags: revenge, cruelty, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
Casualties Of War is going to leave Platoon way in the dust when history has its verdict.Though Sean Penn's got several great films to his credit, by far this is the best work of Michael J.
That's the frightening part of Casualties Of War. None of the four could see anything wrong, even Leguizamo who sees his first duty as to stick with the guys who have your back in the field.As good as Fox and Penn and the rest of the Occidental cast is, the best performance in the film is Thuy Thu Lee. As the bewildered and frightened young girl she will positively break your heart with her one and only film performance.Casualties Of War was shot in Thailand so we're seeing actual Southeast Asia locations.
"Casualties Of War" is a depiction of an actual (and sickening) event that was first reported in the New Yorker magazine in 1969 in which a squad of American soldiers kidnap, rape and murder an innocent, young Vietnamese girl.The two main protagonists in the movie are played by Michael J.
And of course, there's the real casualty - the young girl dragged out of her home and away from her mother who endures a nightmare before being killed.This is most definitely a powerful, disturbing and brutal movie that definitely makes it point..
Fox or whether Sean Penn played their part better seems to overlook an obviety: without that performance by the Vietnamese girl, Thuy Thu Le, this film would have been forgotten years ago.
"Casualties of War" is based on a horrifying true accident which took place in 1966.Some American soldiers abducted a teen-age Vietnamese girl and dragged her on a long-range reconnaissance mission.They tortured,raped and finally murdered her.Michael J.Fox is excellent as a the only soldier in the platoon who tries to stop the violent crime.Thuy Thu Le is also impressive as the victim-her performance is so convincing that I'm surprised that she hasn't appeared in the other movies.The rape/murder scene is among the most heart-breaking sequences ever captured on screen.The film is well-directed by Brian De Palma("Sisters","Carrie","Dressed to Kill")and it delivers the message which tells the viewer that war is hell and can turn young men into monsters.A must-see for fans of disturbing and thought-provoking cinema..
Fox as Eriksson, one of a five-man unit during the Vietnam war that sees events turn sour, since his unit sees much action, in which he believes civilians were wrongfully killed, but later things take an even more evil turn when the group's "leader" Sgt. Meserve(played by Sean Penn) orders the abduction of a young Vietnamese girl for a group rape.
Fox) rebels against his commanding officer (Sean Penn) and other members of his patrol when they kidnap a defenceless Vietnamese girl (Thuy Thu Le) and subject her to a terrifying physical ordeal.Unfairly overshadowed by the simultaneous theatrical release of Oliver Stone's pompous - but still impressive - BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989), Brian DePalma's CASUALTIES OF WAR recreates a harrowing incident from the Vietnam conflict - first reported in 'New Yorker' magazine in 1969 - in which a group of otherwise decent men succumbed to their own worst impulses and committed a terrible crime.
Filmed with typical cinematic bravado by master craftsman DePalma, the movie uses every inch of the scope frame to convey both the duality of the landscape (vast swathes of breathtaking countryside, where sudden death lurks around every corner) and the moral vacuum which stretches the two central characters (Fox and Penn) to breaking point.
Around the time of the mid to late 1980s many Vietnam war movies were flying out, The Killing Fields, Platoon, and best of them (not counting Apocalypse Now from the 70s) was Full Metal Jacket.
The themes are meant to be universal, or at least capture the nature of a platoon mind-set, of what it's like to be a soldier.Brian De Palma's film is set in Vietnam, like those films, but it could take place during any war.
They don't start out that way though, and that makes it too complex to ignore as a polemic.It's about a squad, led by Penn's Sergeant, who decides to take a leave for a short while of the usual soldier duties to take a girl into the jungle and rape and murder her.
Again, this is complicated: earlier in the film we saw two crucial things, that Penn's character saved Fox from death by the enemy in a tight spot, and that one of the squad's best people gets killed quite suddenly as everyone's just standing around talking (this is, truly, a shocking moment to have in any film from it coming at a mundane moment).
There's hard hitting, and then there's Casualties of War. CASUALTIES OF WAR tells the excruciating true story of a squad of American soldiers during the Vietnam War, who kidnap and rape a young Vietnamese girl in the name of fun.
Fox, in a rare dramatic performance that may be his career-best.Films like this can hardly be enjoyed, but CASUALTIES OF WAR proves to be unmissable entertainment and one of the harshest war stories out there; also, one of the best.
I want to say Scarface, The Untouchables and Casualties of War are Brian De Palma's best films, because they are his most serious in subject matter.
But he brings the same sort of stiffly disassociated acting, point-of-view-shot set pieces, stock characters and melodramatically contrived dialogue to the story of a platoon in the Vietnam War and the rape to which they subjected a village girl.
The movie's structure is not so much about the act as about the climate building to it, the dehumanizing authenticity of battle, the way it advocates brute force and rejects those who would try to live by a superior gauge.The pivotal sequence of the kidnapping, the march, captivity and gang rape of the girl is excruciating because it makes it so distinct how ineffectual Michael J.
Based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam War, 'Casualties of War', directed by legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma, is An Effective Film, that talks about Human-Cruelty & Violence.
Fox does a great job in this showing the naiveness among the soldiers at the time and Sean Penn does a good job showing how bad a persons psyche can go when pushed to the limit for something they don't believe in.
I remember being slightly surprised to see a young Michael J Fox playing a soldier and I think it was this point that kept me watching.
The Vietnamese actress Thuy Thu Le's performance is so good that it's almost too painful to watch.This movie isn't as famous as it should be and deserves a place among the most powerful and well acted war movies of all time..
I decided to watch once again and I got to say that I am still amazed by the quality on this movie regarding the actors (Michael J.Fox is tremendous is his role), the music, the scene, the realization, the plot...For the one who says that it is an anti war movie, that American soldiers were heroes...
Fox is perfectly cast as the idealistic young soldier who must come to terms with the brutality of war in his own squad led by an outstanding Sean Penn as Meserve.The story follows this group on patrol and watching Sean Penn and his band of followers do whatever they want no matter what the consequences is truly frightening.
Fox must stand up for what he believes in and in the process he goes up against Penn, his other squad members and his superior officers in this riveting story which is based on an actual incident.With a haunting score and Oscar calibre performances from Michael J.
Brian De Palma took advantage of the post-Platoon glasnost to put this mini-My Lai centre-stage, and made Casualties of War the only Vietnam film to make American evil its subject.
During the war in Vietnam; a squad of five men kidnap a young girl from her village, rape and kill her.
Fox, does not take part, thus bucking his fearless squad leader, played by Sean Penn.This will leave you frustrated, disappointed and ashamed that this sort of thing was considered by some as just another part of war.
Penn actually turns in one of his best screen performances, even if at times he over acts.Others in the cast are John Leguizamo, Ving Rhames, Don Harvey and Thuy Thu Le..
Shockingly based on a real incident, revenge hungry soldier (Penn) and his squad kidnap a young female villager, and subject her to a brutal rape, then a shocking execution, that pangs a memory when I think about it visually.
Even though Penn does overact some, he's character great here, as Seargeant Meserve, a man of frightening intensity and remorselessness, as if he's lost complete touch with humanity, much like a machine, while too, we have John C Reilly and John Leguizamo, before they were known, playing two reluctant GI'S, forced participants in the rape.
I really didn't think, Casualties Of War had a plot, as I just wrote it off, as a just another Vietnam, no plot flick, but this is a film that should be seen, life from the other side of Vietnam, a despicable and unforgivable act, where really with the exception of Fox, and those two others mentioned who got appropriate sentences, Penn, and his inhuman psycho, hate filled mate, who I found detestable (the Stephen Baldwin lookalike guy) should of just of fried.
What was odd, which didn't make Fox convincing was at the start and the end (the same scene, a nice touch) while having bad recollections on the bus, of those days gone by, it's hard to believe he looked like something who'd been in Vietnam.
Fox plays a true good man I believe he helped make this movie interesting because you couldn't help but urge him on to keep doing the right thing.
Where were the rest of the Keaton clan?Sean Penn could have saved me, but Penn has been in every Vietnam film ever made, or at least so it seems, and usually playing the same character, so the unique reality of this movie began to blur into all the other Vietnam pics in the genre.So you've got the surrealism of Fox as the lead and the mimeographed quality of Penn's calloused soldier redux.But I'm not too jaded to ignore the fact that the film packs some power.
This scene was unwittingly spoofed in another Fox film, The Hard Way, when Fox's actor character steals overwrought lines from James Woods and delivers them with all the finesse of a Mack truck.DePalma, SchmePalma: Marty McFly should never have time-traveled to the Vietnam War..
He goes from scared (at the beginning, first time in Vietnam & all to astonishment of what he hears of what Penn plans to do in the 'ville.At the very end, you feel the pain that Fox is going through, because there wasn't anything that he could do, short of killing his own men.
If this film doesn't touch you then nothing will.Great performances by Sean Penn and Michael J Fox..
Eriksson is against their action and soon finds himself at the four's wrath but things get even more heated once he plans to help press charges against them.Brian De Palma's CASUALTIES OF WAR was just one of many Vietnam movies from about an eleven year period where all sorts of them were coming out.
Their patrol is led by sergeant Meserve (Sean Penn) who after losing his friend in battle, begins to feel very severe hate towards all the Vietnamese and decides to kidnap a girl during their patrol in order to rape and abuse her with the other men during their journey.
Rarely have I seen a movie this powerful and thought provoking, and since there are not so many, they which are, become even more important and remarkable and Casualties of War is definitely among those films.
In the midst of all this, is one soldier (Michael J Fox) who still believes in morals during war.Thuy Thu Le was incredible as the kidnapped villager.
Private Eriksson is forced to stand alone against his fellow soldiers and his commanding officer.Directed by Brian De Palma (The Black Dahlia, Femme Fatale, The Fury) made an strong anti-war drama morality play.
Searing and brutally profound morality play based on true events about a squad of American soldiers kidnapping and raping a Vietnamese girl and then cruelly murdering her.
Fox and Sean Penn, Casualties Of War was a very thought provoking and disturbing motion picture from director Brian De Palma.
Taking place during the Vietnam War, it's the story of a group of soldiers whom kidnap, and 4 out of 5 of them rape a Vietnamese woman.
Brian De Palma's only venture into war movies is a powerful, if somewhat melodramatic story about a squad in Vietnam who kidnaps a Vietnamese villager and rapes her.
Released at the end of a decade of big Vietnam films like "Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Born On The Fourth Of July," "Casualties of War" occupies a smaller and more intimate space, almost resembling a TV movie apart from the cussing.
As for the performances, something seems to be missing from Sean Penn's acting, but Fox is unexpectedly good and the Vietnamese girl is so good that at times you forget it's only a movie.
The kidnapping eventually leads to the murder of the girl, and Fox is determined to bring the men to justice, even though Penn argues that "what happens on the field stays on the field."This is director Brian De Palma's finest hour.
In the same way that time had to move on in order that considered films on the Vietnam War could be made, so time sometimes needs to move on to provide a perspective on those films themselves.In the early 21st century America finds itself in another hopeless adventure abroad, in Iraq, with young men killing and being killed with no-one quite sure why.With the passage of time this story assumes a depth and resonance that wasn't possible at the time.De Palma's strength is in how he portrays people, and this is a veritable tour de force in this respect.Sean Penn is about the finest actor of his generation, and his Sgt Meserve is superb.Brutal and loyal, yet cruel and amoral.
De Palma's "Casualties of War" is a pleasant surprise for two main reasons: 1) it almost entirely refuses to compromise the story it tells to appeal to plebeian morality and 2) it features one hell of a performance by Michael J.
"Casualties of War" treats this as a set-up to its much darker intentions - namely the revenge that is exacted and the psychological dynamics that lead to it being carried out.And, as much as I like Sean Penn as an actor, it was Michael J.
Ultimately, De Palma tries to show that during war, the line between baddies and goodies is not as clear cut as we would believe.The theme is totally centred around Penn and Fox, the former being the ostensible "baddie" - a common, sadistic, murderer of an innocent Vietnamese girl, but who is the best soldier of his platoon and whose bravery at the beginning of the film saves Fox's life.
a powerful film with good acting by Fox and Sean Penn as his commanding officer.
This is a movie that is cheaply made, poorly edited, has bad acting, and is not a good testament to an extremely serious topic.The movie basically follows a squad of American soldiers in Vietnam as they capture, rape, and kill a young Vietnamese girl.
It was first of all not very good acting, despite having Sean Penn and Michael J Fox, which was surprising.
Erikson is forced to take a stand in the face of rape and brutality that he can't believe  however what's a crime in war time?De Palma is a great director when he's on form  untouchables is a class film and Snake Eyes shows that he can rise above material to deliver style.
And it works -- to a certain extent.The pros: Good true story, fine acting, fairly strong script, good emotional heart-tuggers.The cons: Sean Penn's accent, DePalma's rather boring direction, a somewhat contrived lead character, and a mildly fake feel to the film.Fox is Eriksson, an infantryman with a wife and daughter who joins the fight in Vietnam and witnesses a brutal murder and rape.
Fox was good but only in parts.The brutality done on the Vietnemese girl should have been shown with a more emotional kind of feel.But that was missing.Good movie to watch but not a great one though.People are saying its a masterpiece but this does not touch you.Instead it shows the dark side of American military.Brian De Palma has made many better films than this.I don't like this film that much because it fails to leave an impact.But without an emotional side you can see this film..
Fox actually acting(!) and Sean Penn as always making a memorable, haunting performance.I remember this as a good warmovie, focusing not so much on war as it did on what war does to people.
But on the other hand it's a well made film, one of DePalma's better, that does haunt you at times and as always Sean Penn portrays a fu(ked up young man with great precision and delivers yet another memorable, excellent performance.
I am definitely not defending the acts of Sean Penn and the other soldiers in this movie and indeed during the course of the war.
It's not 'Platoon', my favorite war movie (I haven't seen Saving Private Ryan yet) but I was surprised how good it was, Michael J Fox's best performance by far.
Michael J Fox and Sean Pen star in this gritty drama about a young soldier who tries to bring justice to the rest of his platoon for raping and Murdering a local girl.