We Were Soldiers Review

As many movie watchers will tell you, Hollywood's depiction of the Vietnam War has tended to be very uneven, often surreal, and (to the detriment of anyone with any serious interest in the topic) all too often told from a liberal and anti-war perspective that's heavy on "message" but light on the experience of the men and women who, for good or ill, went to Indochina in the service of their country.  The only war film of the era that tried to counter the trend was the 1968 John Wayne vehicle The Green Berets,  which even Tom Clancy, the best-known chronicler and supporter of America's armed forces of the late 20th Century, has dismissed as "a World War II film in Vietnam War trappings."

 True, the liberal wing of Hollywood has produced several Vietnam War-themed films that are worth watching, if for nothing else than their artistic content.  My favorite of these is Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which is actually a retelling of Joseph Conrad's 1902 set-in-Africa novel Heart of Darkness which morphs the Congo into a surreal and fictional vision of Vietnam.

Another worthwhile (but still somewhat left-leaning) Vietnam War film is Oliver Stone's semi-autobiographical Platoon, which won several Academy Awards and was widely hailed as the first movie to really tell the stories of America's grunts in realistic terms.  It's definitely powerful and well-made, but I sometimes wonder if Stone's well-known leftist views are reflected in its depiction of the GIs and their attitudes toward the Vietnamese and their fellow soldiers.

 I like to see films that have some fairness and balance to them, which is one reason that I really like Randall Wallace's 2002 adaptation of the book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Lt. Gen. Harold B. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway.

Wallace's film version is a realistic and respectful account of the first major battle between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces in November of 1965.

Starring Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, We Were Soldiers begins with the Vietnamese destruction of France's Mobile Group 100 in 1954, the same year that Diem Bien Phu fell and French involvement in Vietnam ended, paving the way for America's long and doomed intervention. This opening scene is graphically violent yet serves to drive home its point - to show the determination of the Vietnamese to drive off any outside force, even if it means being ruthless.

We Were Soldiers, unlike Apocalypse Now or  Platoon, portrays its soldiers realistically and without the anti-military post-Vietnam War bitterness that permeates those two films. Some viewers might even accuse Wallace (who wrote and directed) of having a right-wing revisionist slant, but in the featurette on the making of the movie, he points out that he was inspired to do We Were Soldiers when he read Hal Moore's comment that Hollywood has never gotten it right when it comes to making movies about the Vietnam War.

We Were Soldiers not only has respect and admiration for the U.S. soldiers, but it also depicts the bravery and sacrifice of the Vietnamese People's Army. True, most of the focus is on the American troops and, unusually for a Vietnam combat movie, their families. But I personally have not seen the North Vietnamese portrayed with this much respect in a movie - even though I know Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth is a movie that deals with the Vietnamese.

Mel Gibson portrays Lt. Col. Moore with his usual earnestness, wit and warmth. He allows us to see the human side to this very intellectual and dedicated soldier. He is not only a very pensive officer who reads French history books about Vietnam and has various college degrees, but also a loving husband and father. His scenes with Madeline Stowe, who plays his wife Julie, exude affection and true chemistry. Also, the scene when Moore explains the concept of war to his youngest daughter is touching and tender. Rounding out the cast are Sam Elliott, Barry Pepper, Keri Russell, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, and Jason Biggs.

The depiction of the battle at Landing Zone X-ray ranks among the best, if sometimes grueling, war scenes. The movie captures the horrible yet mesmerizing spectacle of battle, taking audiences from the roller-coaster exhilaration of nap of the earth helicopter rides to a three-day life-or-death struggle between two determined bands of fighting men.