WE WERE SOLDIERS Reviews Marching In!!

Hey Harry, I'm steadicam, and I'm a political science and film theory double major here in UB. I was able to go and see the new Randall Wallace movie "We Were Soldiers" and I thought I should report, as all other reports seemed to come from these ultra-patriotic military people. I should warn you ahead that my language might not get pretty. My hands are shaking as I'm writing this, rarely, if ever has a movie insulted and enraged me so much. Not even Pearl Harbor, for forgetting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or any movie that Britney Spears or Mariah Carey was in. Hell, I wouldn't be so enraged if it was decided that Episode 2 would be acted out completely by N'Sync, and that their music would be replacing John Williams'. I am shouting. I am cursing. I smoked two unfiltered Camel's and I haven't even felt them on my tongue. This is a horrible, horrible movie, lacking any sign of intelligence or humanity. It is the ultimate pro-war movie, and it is sadly perfect in its timing.

Let me start off by saying that this movie begins with the "This is a true story" words. In basic sense, these words are the greatest lie that can be told, and I am against any movie that actually does grace such letters. A movie, with its reenactment, acting, production, camera everywhere, and furthermore, poetic license, can never, ever be a true story. It is a lie to manipulate us in feeling more towards the characters and story. So we can tell the next day to our friends "Dude, you won't believe the shit that happened in 'Nam." So we can change and destroy history.

After those letters we hear the voice of Barry Pepper, whom we 2/3's in the movie meet to discover he is a reporter who saw all the events. One thing to everybody- doesn't it feel surreal to see some actors always in war movies? This guy was in "Saving Private Ryan", remember in how many recent war movies we saw, say, Tom Sizemore. Anyway, the voiceover informs us that he doesn't know where the conflict of Vietnam began, and we see some French troopers. The voiceover cuts away, and we their leader mutter the words "Fucking country"- just then a bullet enters his neck. The Vietcong enter, and brutally kill and murder the French- we see French soldiers scream and we see how they look at the "evil" Vietcong, unmercifully kill a soldier who looks into their eyes and sadly mutters "no"…this scene is a basic summary of what the movie is. Evil, brutal, barbaric Vietcong, poor French/American soldiers, how they suffered, etc. It seems by watching the movie that the Vietcong didn't suffer at all, or that everything the American's did is justifiable.

People who now will say that I am too political, then here is my response- war is one of those things where there is politics heavily involved in. Obviously, in the midst of battle there are no real politics- but portraying this is another matter. Everyway the camera moves, the actors talk, etc. is political. And if the director denies this, that there are no politics in the movie, than he lacks the intelligence to direct a war movie. Especially in a time like we are in right now, such movies are really important, and impossible to dismiss by saying "Don't look at its politics."

Anyway back to the movie. We meet Mel Gibson, respectful Christian, seven kids. He's a Harvard graduate in International Politics and a Korea veteran. We see what a beautiful life he has, and what a great guy he is. WE see the surroundings the place where the families of soldiers live. We meet Chris Klein, infamous from "Rollerball" (which is a good movie next to this) and we see what a great guy he is, what a beautiful family he has. There is a scene which so lacks in intelligence and script writing ability that it is stunning- all the wives of the soldiers wives meet. One of them complains that the local laundry says "Only Whites" and that she also wants to wash her color clothes there. Somebody explains that this sing actually means no black people. Then one of the wives, the only black one, makes the melodramatic speech, complete with slow camera-close up and melodramatic music, that she knows what her husband is doing will in the end be worth it. All the other white wives applaud her when she finishes with a one-liner. It is interesting to note how politically correct everybody is. I guess in real life, people were like this- but wait, then how come signs like that were actually posted? There are no bad Americans in this movie. It's crazy what the fear of being sued does to movies. Everybody knows that there were at least some racist people in the Army- there are still sayings about it. This movie is the denial version.

Anyway, let's move on. Chris Klein gets a kid. He becomes Mel's favorite soldier. We meet Greg Kinnear who is a pilot, but there is not much of him in the movie. Nixon announces that these guys have to go to Vietnam. For some odd reason, all the wives are always together when receiving important news. There is an insane scene where Mel looks at a picture of Indians killing American soldiers brutally, and looking at shots of the massacre the Cong did on the French. Great, now Wallace is denying the Indian genocide and justifying all the killings the Americans did as a side-note. Later Mel makes a dramatic speech to his soldiers that all of them there are equal, that there will be no racism between them. The soldiers are painted with such political correctness and perfection in character that you wonder whether that speech was necessary at all.

They go to 'Nam. Lots of blood, lots of evil Vietcong surprising and killing young baby faced Americans. While all the American deaths are capitalized on with bloody slow motion shots, rarely do we see such close-ups for the Vietcong. And when we do, there are so many sparks invading the scene that you would think it's the 4th of July, stand up celebrate. We get the classic "Tell my wife I loved her" and the "Well, I'm glad I died for my country" last liners. Chris Klein becomes a friend with the only black soldier- he dies melodramatically when trying to save him. Many more Americans die in the same slowmotion shots. We see scenes of the Cong high command, living in dark caves, surrounded by evil red communist flags making decisions, while we hear a tribal and primitive percussion music score in the background, a contrast to the romantic and symphonic music that we hear with the Americans.

For a second there is hope that this movie will not be as racist as it seems. We see shots of a Cong who thinks of his girlfriend. Yet we lose all sympathy with him when he tries to kill good old Mel by charging at him with a knife attached to his rifle. Beyond that all the scenes of the Cong, and them trying to be politically correct seem fake and artificial. Wallace doesn't have the guts to embrace his ultra-fascist ideals.

There are scenes when we meet the reporter and he lets go of his cameras to take a gun in his hand and fight, and there is a just funny sequence when he picks up his camera again to document what is happening around him.

That's basically what the movie is. It ends by showing how the public ignored the poor veterans when they returned home, and by giving the names of the platoon we saw in action. I must quickly give credit to Pepper, Gibson (eventhough I despise them both) and Kinnear- they try their best to make the horrible screenplay look a bit good. There are a few shots that look nice- drops of water on grass and some evening shots (that remind you more of Star Wars gunfights more than anything else.)

Beyond that, this movie is a travesty. It copies off so many war movies its crazy- the napalm bombings of "Platoon", the documentary style of "Saving Private Ryan", the looking at animals from "The Thin Red Line", the surreal reds of "Apocalypse Now".

This is cinema at its worst folks. It is a banal movie that it just wrong. It is uses gore and blood to trick us, not as a tool of realism, but of melodrama. It is manipulatively racist. It justifies everything America did in Vietnam and acts as if they were the hero's there. We all know what the truth is about Vietnam. This is not it. I have sympathy for the veterans- they were stupid enough to believe the propaganda of the nation that they were about to lose all their values by a small defenseless country. This movie believes all the propaganda that was told to the soldiers then and tries to make us believe it.

My greatest problem was something else though- in a moment when everything seems lost for Gibson and co., Kinnear saves them- and the audience behind me applauded. I was pretty much ready to see a bad movie, so I had my bullet-proof vest on. But that hit me right from behind my head. In that moment I realized, that despite all its crude banality and obvious fakeness, the patriotic feelings of the people got triggered. Everything that happened to this country was suddenly exposed. I understood that in such a time, such films can explore our emotional state, and completely rethink certain things, certain facts. We all knew that Vietnam was the craziest thing America ever got involved in. In that moment, everybody just forgot. The only thing this movie was missing is a "Be All You Can Be" sign.

That is why this movie is evil. It really is. Nobody can ever justify Vietnam, just as nobody will be able to justify the over 6,000 CIVILIAN deaths in Afghanistan today. We forget history. If you people want to see a movie about violence see "Taxi Driver". If you guys want to see Vietnam see "Platoon" and furthermore, "Born on the Fourth of July" directed by a real 'Nam volunteer veteran. If you want to see war see "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket" or "The Thin Red Line". Please do not see this movie. And if you do, think of what I'm saying. Process it through your brain, don't just let it go from one ear to another. And if you do, and you still don't understand, then I wish that your ass gets pounded by a million dingo's with testicular fucking cancer. I await your reactions RIGHT HERE.

Holy cow. I think that would qualify as "scathing." Maybe it gets better in this next review...

The new Gibson/Wallace flick WE WERE SOLDIERS got a screening here in Dublin yesterday... Not a single person exiting the cinema had a kind word to say about this film. Not a one.

Here's my humble review.

Only a true cynic would think that the release of We Were Soldiers was pushed forward to cash in on the post-September 11th patriotic fervour that has gripped the US. In many ways similar to Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, both films feature an over-confident US force overwhelmed by forces with inferior technology but superior cunning.

We Were Soldiers, also a true story, has been brought to the screen by Randall Wallace, responsible for the Leonardo di Caprio version of The Man In The Iron Mask and the script for last year's Pearl Harbor. In a move of Machiavellian cunning, Wallace has combined the flat, lifeless look of the former with the… ahem… storytelling bravura of the latter.

They say that war is a mostly mundane experience - the constant noise and impact of battle dulling ones sense to a state of complete numbness. And in that respect, We Were Soldiers is a shining example of the genre. For anyone interested in seeing a film however, you will find it a dull, overlong mess with few redeeming features to pull it out of the trenches.

Mel Gibson stalks through the better part of two and a half hours with his blue eyes twinkling and an oversized lump in his throat, but almost everyone else is a faceless, clean-cut grunt, fit only to get shot in a series of slow-motion cuts, then croak: "Tell my wife… I love… accchhh!". The rest of the dialogue occasionally raises itself above this admittedly high benchmark to the level of 'embarrassing'. Did I mention that the Vietnam landscape that looks exactly like a bunch of fields somewhere in Utah? Well, it does.

The saving graces range between the intermittently wince-worthy battlefield gore and the icy-cool presence of badass Sam Elliot as Gibson's second in command. War films like The Thin Red Line, Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket already exist, thus negating any possible reason for seeing this.

Oh, wait. The name of that e-mail was "WE WERE SOLDIERS Makes The Baby Jesus Weep." Guess that would be a negative review. Hmmm... sounds like one that's going to make you react, one way or another. We'll see which in a few weeks, I s'pose.

"Moriarty" out.