Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Harry's not the only one who fell in love with a script this weekend.
It's strange. When you get a stack of new stuff to read, it's always hard to prioritize. At least, it is for me. I never know if I want to save my most-anticipated reads (like the script for the TENACIOUS D film) for last, or if I want to go ahead and just tear right into them. Most of the time, I'll just put everything in a big stack and start pulling scripts out at random.
And so it was that I ended up looking at the title page of WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE... AND YOUNG, the January 11, 2001 draft written by Randall Wallace, based on the book by Lt. General Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway. I didn't read that book, but I have done a fair amount of reading about Vietnam. My father went and served there, and trying to understand what he went through was something that became very important to me at a certain point in time. In my reading about the conflict, I came across several well-written references to the conflict that took place in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam in November of 1965. This was one of the first significant engagements between the US and Vietnam, and it promises to make one hell of a film in the hands of director Randall Wallace, screenwriter of both BRAVEHEART and this summer's PEARL HARBOR.
Right away, Wallace lets us know that this is going to be something different than the standard war movie that we've come to know and expect. Over a black screen, a simple voice over tells us that what we are about to see is "a testament to the young Americans who died in the Valley of Death, and a tribute to the young men of the People's Army of Vietnam who died by our hand in that place." Yes, you read that right. This script is a tribute to the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. This is not a script about good versus evil or wrong versus right, but instead is about man versus man, about soldier versus solider, and the circumstances that conspire to create such an encounter.
The script starts with a quick scene in 1954, showing how the Vietminh fought and destroyed the French, how they used tactics no one was prepared for, and how they drove the French out only after breaking their spirits. We then move forward in time to 1962, shifting locale to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where we get to meet HAL MOORE, a no-shit old-fashioned hero, who is being played by Mel Gibson in a really wonderful bit of casting. There's something both stoic and reckless about Moore as written, and audiences will basically be following him through the film. It's important Moore be someone we like, someone we can cling to when the shit really starts coming down.
And believe me... it does.
The intro for Moore shows how he's able to keep his cool no matter what's happening. He's testing a parachute and gets hooked onto the plane he's jumping from. One thing after another goes wrong, and everyone in the plane and on the ground crew is sure Moore's a dead man, but he manages to focus, do just the right thing, and land without a scratch. It's no wonder his superiors think of him when they decide to test the feasibility of using helicopters in combat if they decide to escalate the effort in Vietnam. In 1964, Moore and his family relocate to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he becomes the leader of the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry. When he's given his regiment number, Moore goes a bit ashen and asks, "The 7th? The same regiment as... Custer?"
It’s 38 pages of build-up that Wallace uses wisely here, 38 pages of us getting a good look at the community of families at Fort Benning, the wives and the children who are staying behind. Wallace makes sure to remind us that these were people who were leaving behind these great lives, knowing full well that they might not come back. In so many Vietnam films, we’ve seen the soldiers from later in the war, the guys who were drafted, the young black men and the southern poor, the ones who couldn’t afford the particular draft numbers or the college tuition, the ones who seemed to be particularly targeted. But it’s rare that we see the ones who went in the first, the men who volunteered. These were the guys who represented the best and brightest, and it’s that particular breed of soldier that Wallace is paying tribute to.
We see the Americans leaving Fort Benning, and a voice-over tells us that “On the same day the 7th Air Cavalry left Charleston Harbor, bound for Vietnam, the 66th North Vietnamese Regiment departed its home in the north, to move through its Cambodian sanctuary to the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.” Wallace draws the Vietnamese characters here with real human empathy and respect, and it can’t be stressed enough... this is not what we’re used to seeing in a war film. Somewhere along the way, drama and propaganda got confused, and as a result, there’s a jingoistic sense to almost every film made about war. The enemy is always monstrous, always just a faceless horde. It’s easier that way, less complicated. We examine shades of grey within our own ranks, but no matter how bad the worst of “us” is, we’re always superior to “them.” The first few engagements the Vietnamese draw the Americans into are smart, calculated taunts, forcing the Americans to respond with force, forcing them to respond in a specific location. A trap is expertly set and sprung, and it certainly disproves the impression of a General in an early scene that they’re fighting “cavemen in black pajamas.” In many ways, the Vietnamese traded on the knowledge that they were underestimated. It’s the same thing as Ali’s infamous rope-a-dope. Play possum. Play weak. Play dumb. Then, when the time comes, prove exactly what you’re capable of. Hell, our own Harry Knowles has been telling me for years that he’s just saving up all his spelling and grammar for the one time he’ll really need them.
Page 42 of the script brings us up to November 14, 1965, a Sunday, and the start of the attack on Landing Zone X-Ray, as it’s declared. It’s a point in the Ia Drang Valley at the base of Chu Pong Mountain, a thirty minute round trip helicopter ride from their base camp, meaning the first sixty men into the area will have a thirty minute window where they’re the only sixty men in the area, where the full weight of the invasion is on them. It’s a terrifying position to be in, and Moore makes sure that he’s the first man off the first chopper, vowing to the last man on the last one out if necessary. High on the Chu Pong Massif, Colonel Anh is the man in charge. In many ways, parallels are drawn between them, and there’s a similarity in the strength of character they both seem to have. They are leaders, and they genuinely care for the welfare of their men. It’s the conflict between these two wills that is etched so memorably in the pages that follow.
I love the film ROMPER STOMPER, but it’s mainly one key sequence in that film that lingers in my memory. Early on, a simple stupid act of violence leads to a chain of events that escalate into a full-blown race riot. It’s harrowing, and Geoffrey Wright put us directly in the center of it, giving us no exit, putting us in peril with the characters onscreen. That’s the feeling I got from page 42 on in this script. Randall Wallace has done an exceptional job of establishing the geography of this conflict, and also the subtle shift of power that takes place over the course of a three-day battle. Early on, he establishes that characters you’ve come to be quite fond of aren’t safe, and there is wholesale slaughter here. The actual landing area becomes the hot zone for the conflict, pinning the Americans down from the moment they hit ground, and the sheer number of Vietnamese soldiers is overwhelming. Looking over the cast list for the film, it looks like Wallace has filled out the 7th Cavalry with a mix of solid character actors, familiar faces, and some fresh recruits, meaning Mel Gibson will be joined by Marc Blucas (so effective on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER as Riley for the past few seasons), the always-awesome Sam Elliott, Clark Gregg, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, Barry Pepper, Doug Hutchison, as well as Ryan Hurst, Erik MacArthur, Blake Heron, and Josh Daugherty. Every character is given surprising depth, and Wallace has learned how to work quickly, filling in key details and effectively creating someone we recognize, someone that could be us.
I won’t go into the details of the battle that unfolds. It is horrible and sad and there are moments of almost superheroic bravery scattered throughout. As an actor, you can’t be given anything more direct to do than this. This is opera in a way, giant emotions played out against an epic backdrop. Wallace expertly cuts from the heat of the battle to the wives back at Fort Benning as the letters start to roll in informing them of the deaths of their husbands. Moore’s wife, set to be played by Madeline Stowe, does her best to serve as the center of this community of women united by tragedy and the mere possibility of tragedy. Each letter she has to deliver is a different family ruined, and there’s always the chance she’s going to pull her own name out of the mailbag. Wallace uses this cross-cutting to actually build suspense about certain characters’ fates, and it’s quite effective.
If you don’t know how the conflict ended, and you want to be totally surprised by the ending, go ahead and skip to the last paragraph now. Since this is a historical moment, I don’t consider it spoiler material, but I want to give you the choice to not know certain things.
Okay... still with me? Good. I want to offer special praise to Wallace for a quiet moment that takes place after Moore and his men finally drive Anh’s troops back. In my opinion, it may be one of the most cogent analyses of Vietnam that’s been offered in a film to date. Hal Moore tells McDade, the commander who relieves him, how to proceed, but when he gets back to camp, he hears that McDade immediately did the exact opposite, leading all of his men into certain death. It’s wrenching, especially in light of how hard Moore worked to protect as many men as he could, and how close to success he came. Moore wants to go back into battle, to help, but he’s ordered into a debriefing with Robert McNamara and General Westmoreland, the two men who could arguably be called the architects of Vietnam. No matter what Moore says to them, they see his numbers (“79 dead against 1800… 2000 enemy?”) as a success, and they take it as confirmation that they can expect an easy victory in any conflict they choose to enter. Moore is a good soldier in every way, meaning he won’t be openly insubordinate to these men, but he registers his protest in another way, reading an excerpt from the journal of a dead Vietnamese soldier that he found on the battlefield:
”Oh my dear, my young wife. When the troops come home after the victory, and you do not see me, please look at the proud colors. You will see me there and you will feel warm under the shadow of the bamboo tree.”
They don’t get it, though. They keep talking about escalating the conflict, ordering in 40,000 more troops, and how they’ll eventually “run the little bastards back home.”
Moore tries again, telling them how proud he was of his men, then adding, “But if were the leader of the other side... I would have been proud of them.” This stops conversation in the room finally. They don’t know what to say to Moore, and he presses on:
”They pushed 2000 men through artillery and napalm. And those 2000 came willingly. They ran right at the muzzles of our guns. We took them hand to hand. And we won. But they didn’t see it that way. They didn’t go away. They just backed up and came again. We won’t run the little bastards home, sir. They are home.”
The film’s final coda at the Wall in Washington is haunting, and overall, I am left with a feeling of great sorrow after reading this script. I was moved at the idea that Randall Wallace wants to show the name of every man killed at X-Ray and Albany before the closing credits, that he wants to make sure to pay respect to the men who were there. This is a script that has gone the distance, that has done what so many critics of historical dramas complain no one ever does, giving a human face to both sides of the conflict, and if Wallace and his director of photography Dean Semler (DANCES WITH WOLVES, THE ROAD WARRIOR) can come up with visual power to match what’s on the page, then this is going to be a memorable and important picture. As it stands, it’s one of the best reads I’ve had so far this year, and I’m officially looking forward to hearing more about this as it proceeds. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
