BEFORE: As you might imagine, I would have preferred to save this one for a holiday like Veterans' Day or even Armed Forces Day, but the linking prevails. I need to put this one here to link to tomorrow's Labor Day-themed film, with Mel Gibson carrying over from "The Year of Living Dangerously". My schedule for October through December is fixed now, anyway, so there's little chance of me shuffling things around at this point. But I recently got copies of "Hacksaw Ridge", along with "Heartbreak Ridge", so at least I can put one of those on an appropriate day next year, perhaps.
THE PLOT: The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers who fought it, while their wives waited nervously at home for the good news or the bad news.
AFTER: It's a logical leap from last night's film to this one, right? Both have Mel Gibson, both films are about war in Southeast Asia, both are set in 1964-65 or so. But Gibson was closer to the start of his acting career in "The Year of Living Dangerously", and by the time this was made, 20 or so years later, he was a grizzled veteran - playing, of course, a grizzled veteran.
I've seen quite a few war films by now, and I treat them in a manner similar to how I treat boxing films - in that I appreciate them, but I don't always understand the technical details of what's taking place. But this one seemed to be going out of its way to get involved in those details. We see Gibson's Lt. Col Moore going over plans before the Vietnam War starts, weighing the pros and cons of what the new helicopters can do, and realizing that they're going to be integral to the strategy of a new kind of war, one that's fought on the ground and from the air simultaneously. And then during the battle scenes we see just how correct he turned out to be, with the copters delivering soldiers, then helping with the attack from above, then picking up wounded soldiers to bring back to base, then coming back with more ammo and supplies for the troops who are still holding their position.
And I kind of dig stuff like that, not to mention the peek inside the enemy's bunker as the Viet Cong plan flanking maneuvers, or change their strategy once they figure out what kind of war the Americans decided to wage. Then the U.S. troops change THEIR strategy when the V.C. attack, and so on. That being said, the resulting scenes of troops being shot or burned up (on both sides) are so graphic that I felt that much of this film bordered on a sort of war porn. But maybe it needed to be, to drive the point home to the audience that this is what happened, this is how it went down.
By contrast, the scenes back in the U.S., where Moore's wife takes it upon herself to intercept the telegrams from Western Union meant to inform soldiers' wives that they died in battle, delivered very impersonally by a cab driver to prove that the Army failed to prepare adequately for this situation. Mrs. Moore is able to offer the widows the comfort and support that the Army could not, and that helps to put a human face on the tragedy - each soldier is not just some random person in uniform shot by enemy fire, he's a husband and/or a father who will be missed.
So I'm split on this one, it's an important reminder about what happened in Vietnam, even though that's been seen in many other movies, but it also felt a bit exploitative to me, getting the maximum amount of drama out of historical tragedy. Maybe we can learn something from the fact that both sides claimed victory in this skirmish at the Ia Drang Valley, or maybe it's worth pointing out that though some of the Lt. Col's promises were kept (to be the first man in and the last one out), others obviously were not (to leave no man behind, whether alive or dead).
Also starring Madeleine Stowe (last seen in "Another Stakeout"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "Stuck on You"), Sam Elliott (last heard in "The Good Dinosaur"), Chris Klein (last seen in "American Dreams"), Keri Russell (last seen in "Free State of Jones"), Barry Pepper (last seen in "25th Hour"), Mark McCracken, Duong Don, Ryan Hurst (last seen in "CBGB"), Marc Blucas (last seen in "Sleeping With Other People"), Josh Daugherty, Jsu Garcia, Jon Hamm (last seen in "Keeping Up with the Joneses"), Clark Gregg (last seen in "The To Do List"), Blake Heron, Desmond Harrington (last seen in "Riding in Cars With Boys"), Robert Bagnell, Erik MacArthur, Dylan Walsh (last seen in "Betsy's Wedding"), Brian Tee, Bellamy Young, Jim Grimshaw, Daniel Roebuck, Luke Benward, Taylor Momsen (last seen in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"), Sloane Momsen (ditto), Devon Werkheiser, Josh McLaurin.
RATING: 5 out of 10 bayonets
No comments:
Post a Comment