BEFORE: The war chain is jumping back to Vietnam, but in my mind I'm flashing back to 1989, when this film was in theaters, and I was working as an usher at the Cineplex Odeon. I saw bits of this film if I had to enter the screening room for some reason, but it's taken me this long to watch the whole film from front to back. Look, I've been busy, OK? Yeah, I could have seen the film for free back then on my day off, but really the last thing I wanted to do on my day off was go to the same place where I worked.
Linking from "The Kingdom", Danny Huston was also in "21 Grams" with Sean Penn (last seen in "Carlito's Way". Which is really lucky, since it saves me the trouble of linking the two lead actors from the "Teen Wolf" movies, though some minor character from both of those films.
THE PLOT: During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.
AFTER: I think one of the things this film has going against it is that it was released just a couple years after "Platoon". This film is not "Platoon", it was never going to be "Platoon", and it looked like it was trying to capitalize on that film's success. Anytime a film does really well, or is considered an artistic masterpiece, you can bet that two or three years later, there will be a few similar films released. I'm shocked that "Titanic" wasn't followed by films about the lives lost on the Lusitania and the Andrea Doria. But I digress.
There's no question about the depiction of war here, but just as horrible are the actions of the soldiers after they kidnap a young Vietnamese girl. The questions arise when one squad member decides to report on these actions, and his superiors don't want him to rock the boat. How can you separate out one immoral act (OK, two at least) when surrounded by all the atrocities of war? Can a man turn in the man who saved his life for his war crimes?
This was a tough one to get through, not because of the violent acts depicted, but more because of the tone. It got pretty preachy, something that "Platoon" didn't do. "Platoon" merely showed us the horror of Vietnam, and this film chose to show it, and then have characters talk about it at length, which became somewhat redundant. At some point, you've got to trust the audience to connect the dots and draw their own conclusions.
Plus there's a framing sequence that is so threadbare that it's almost non-existent, and a lot of repeated dialogue, which makes parts of the film feel half-written.
Also starring Michael J. Fox (last heard in "Stuart Little 2"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "Days of Thunder"), Don Harvey, John Leguizamo (last seen in "The Fan"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Out of Sight").
RATING: 5 out of 10 latrines
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